


Stars Rival The Seas

by BamSara



Series: Cryptids, Emotions And The Possible End Of The World [4]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Burning, Canon-Typical Humor, Drowning, Established ZaDf, Fluff, Humor, Jealousy, Little Bit of Everything, M/M, Mermaids, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Road Trips, Sirens, Unnamed Cryptid Character, Violence, Zim doesn't understand human social norms, bantering that borderlines flirting, trio bonding time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24118927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BamSara/pseuds/BamSara
Summary: Tasked with finding evidence of a mermaid to prove it's existence, Dib, Zim, Gaz (and Gir!) take a road trip to the beach in what was supposed to be an easy, no-sweat, semi-vacation mission where they could relax on their off time and soak up the sun. Things go wrong, Zim is hiding secrets, and Dib can just be really dense sometimes.(Summary might change)
Relationships: Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), Gaz & Zim (Invader Zim)
Series: Cryptids, Emotions And The Possible End Of The World [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611253
Comments: 156
Kudos: 1437





	1. Roadtrip!

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: I REALLY don't like how this first chapter came out. It's very scattered to me, so if it flops, it flops.  
> Second of all: By now I'm sure all of you are aware of how I like to portray my Zim and Dib's relationship, that being said, be aware that while I'm not going to write anything too far how from how I usually do with them, this fic WILL start to steer into a more 'ZADR' territory, just a little bit.  
> I'm taking liberties with the creature in this fic also, taking different attributes from different telling of the myth, throwing it all in a pot and sprinkling some extra details to it.
> 
> NOTE: A joke here and there about cannibalism, and mention of Gir throwing up due to carsickness. Aside from that, nothing else to be wary of in the first chapter.

There’s no lights shining from the windows of Zim’s house, but the glare of the gnomes in the front yard are as bright as ever, even in broad daylight. Red pin pricks bore holes into Dib’s forehead as he stands at the end of the sidewalk, just out of range. Even from this distance, he can hear the television blaring loudly some kids cartoon, a familiar one, and the shrill laughter of a particular robot from inside. There’s also the sound of something crashing and breaking, followed by even louder laughter, but there’s no telling as to what that damage could be.

Dib takes another glance towards the gnomes, as they do him, and turns the other direction. They won’t shoot him, the computer knows better by now, but they fact they were clearly activated just established his theory: Zim wasn’t home.

His fingers tap along side his pocket, running over the indentation of his phone. He should really get Zim one of those; they were well past the point where they didn’t need to hunt each other down in person, or at the very least write on rocks and toss it through the other person’s window just to catch their attention. (Zim used particularly big rocks, and for the record, Dib only did it three times.)

Something crinkles in his pocket to his touch and he stuffs a hand in it just to make sure it was all there. A small bundle of papers, not enough to consider bringing his suitcase but just barely thick enough that it needed a paperclip (which sticked his thumb) sat in his pocket. Dib has already read the report once and several times over, and there really wasn’t much to over analyze, but he made sure to print out a picture or two of the subject so Zim could get a better understanding of what it looked like.

The home is a slow one, methodical, and only slightly irritating because he went all that way for nothing and yet still he has to suffer the heat barring down on him from above. Summer had arrived and it had come quickly and suddenly, stealing away cold days and soft breezes and replacing it with heat waves that made the inside of Dib’s trench coat feel like hot leather. Not that he’ll take it off, of course. He’s already gave up the hoodie underneath, but he’ll keep the coat, at least for now.

Dib gets two, maybe three steps into the front yard before something soft clips his ear and smacks him on the shoulder. He jolts surprised, immediately in a fighting stance before glancing down at the stuffed animal fallen to the ground.

“Hey, moron.” Gaz’s voice catches his attention. She’s leaning out of her bedroom window, displeased she missed his head. She squints at him when he attempts to hide his embarrassment with a fidget and a cough. “Your stupid lizard is in the backyard.”

Dib blinks, bending over and picking up the (oddly modified to be a security guard) teddy bear before taking his aim. “My what?”

“Your lizard.” Gaz repeats. Dib throws bear back up wards and she catches it one hand, throwing it back over her shoulder. A crash with a sound of something like a mechanical voice squeaking out in misery resounds from behind her. “Zim. He’s in the shed.”

She shuts the window closed and throws a peace sign through the glass before disappearing. Staring at the glass, it strikes him a second later and Dib’s body all but swivels from facing the front door to the side of the house, practically stomping as he rounded the corner. Okay, maybe not stomping, but creeping very quickly because god-only knows what business Zim would have to do in his shed, (with all of his equipment in it, mind you) and not come to Dib about it first. Well, not that it was likely for Zim to ask permission anyway, but he still would have loudly proclaimed he was doing so before just barging in. Rude.

Stalking around to the backside of the house, lo and behold, the garage door is raised open. Tak’s ship is uncovered, sheet tossed to the side and windshield pulled downwards, a disguised Zim sitting inside. Dib opens his mouth to yell before snapping it closed, stepping back and narrowing his eyes at the alien. Keeping distance was the best way to observe, watch and plan one’s attack. Okay, ‘attack’ was a strong word, but Dib may or may not be a little bit peeved off at the alien’s trespassing and he certainly can’t care to think of another term right now.

He has half a mind to pick up a rock and aim it for his stupid green head when something odd sticks out. The more he stared, the things he noticed; panels torn off and set to the side, parts of the ship that he thought he had repaired long ago reduced to dented metal, wires and cords missing. Dib looks off to the side. The pilot chair was sitting detached in the grass.

Zim has his back turned towards him, sitting against part of the dash for support, the front of it torn open and various wires and other technology spilling out in floods. He plucks through them with his claws, looking at each one with steady focus before mummering something underneath his breath and tossing it to the side. One wire is picked unceremoniously from the rest, Zim giving a thoughtful ‘hmm’ as he inspected it before tucking into his pockets. The process repeats several times with various material, bits of metal and pieces of plastic. Dib has yet to hear a single protest from the ship’s AI system.

His fists curl up into his palm automatically, years of repair dismantled right in front of him. Dib can’t stop the grinding of his teeth and Zim stops. A subtle movement underneath his wig. A second passes and he returns to his scavenging.

Anger and annoyance boil up in Dib’s chest like a storm. He keeps quiet, stepping ever so closer to the alien and the ship’s ruin. The wind seems so much louder when he’s trying to be sneaky, and between the brush of the leaves in the breeze, and Zim’s own focused muttering, Dib creeps right up behind him without much trouble. Hands stretched out, reaching for the alien’s sides. He wasn’t going to do anything bad, per say (despite his current upset) but maybe a little dunk in the trash bin wouldn’t hurt the alien too bad-

A sudden shink of metal, A Pak leg shoots out in the blink of an eye and finds it’s edge underneath Dib’s throat, pressing on the skin underneath his chin. Dib freezes, arms still held out and Zim does not move until very slowly, his head turns around almost like an owl would, not quite a 180 but nearing it, and meets Dib with a shit-eating grin.

Zim glances down at Dib’s outstretched hands near his rib cage and chuckles. “Your pulse is horribly loud when you’re upset.”

The Pak leg is gone within a second, stuffed back inside the Pak and Dib is quick to lean forwards and roughly shove the Invader to the floor of the ship. The alien lands with an ‘oof’ and curses something in Irken as Dib scrambles to climb inside. “You fucker!” He manages, tossing one leg over the front and even going as far to try and kick him as he climbs. “The fuck are you doing scavenging my ship? You have your own stupid Voot, don’t be a greedy bitch and try to steal mine-!”

“Zim is not stealing your pathetic ship! It’s not even _yours_ , it’s Irken property!” Zim backs up, up on his feet and narrowly avoiding the foot thrust at his kneecaps. Did aliens even have kneecaps? “Zim is merely taking back what is mine! I have more use for it! How dare a disgusting worm like you take claim to-!”

He cuts himself off when Dib throws a punch, Zim dodging his head just in time so his knuckles barely scrapped by the inch of his wig. “I worked on this ship for years! It’s mine!” He throws another, putting too much momentum into the swing and throwing himself forwards just as Zim darts to the side, still within range of him. (there really wasn’t a lot of room inside the ship, if anything it was about the size of a tea-cup carnival ride) Dib catches himself on the edge of the dash and snarls over his shoulder. “You’ve just fucked everything I’ve been working on-”

Zim scoffs. “I saw your work, Dib-stink. I’m surprised it didn’t explode with you in it.” Okay, ouch, that kinda hurt. “All this Irken equipment was sitting here wasting away, it serves a better purpose in Zim’s Voot.” He has a prideful smile on his face, with no malice behind it, as if he actually believed he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “With the combined technology in the Voot, it would be safer for-”

Dib throws a fist and Zim catches in his own, a deadpan expression across the alien’s face. Rage boils up and Dib throws his freehand, only for a Pak leg to catch it by the sleeve and pin it down to the dash. He hisses at the contact, baring his teeth at the Invader only to simmer down; Zim is staring at him with something akin to impatience, though his form is rather tame. Dib pulls back on his fist. Claws grip tighter and hold it against Zim’s palm.

“If you would let Zim finish...” Zim trails off, the pressure against Dib’s sleeve lessening ever so slightly. It’s a warning, and Dib doesn’t like it, but he presses his mouth into a line and gives the alien a solid look. The Pak leg raises from the fabric of his sleeve and stores itself back into Zim’s Pak. Dib’s fist is still held, so he waits.

“Technology from this ship combined with the Voot’s would make space travel faster and safer, specifically for you.” He states matter-of-fact. A pause, and Zim takes Dib’s raised eyebrows as the cue to keep going. “Zim needs parts for certain projects, and this is the only thing where I can scavenge Irken technology for a few galaxies out. If you plan on coming with me out into space anytime soon-and you will, because Zim knows you- I will need to make adjustments for your…” He waves his free hand out. “Stupid, pathetic body’s living requirements. Better oxygen replication,food storage, and not sleeping on the floor like a dog. Also some way to clean yourself from your…griminess.” He makes a partial gagging noise.“Disgusting.”

Amber eyes squint at him, narrowing further in suspicion, even as Zim settles back and starts plucking away at the remaining cords scattered across the dash. When he moves, Dib is forced to move forwards with him. “I don’t trust any of what you just said.”

“I didn’t expect you to. But that’s the truth, stinky.” He sits back more comfortably, any hostility from the moments prior dissipating rather quickly, but it’s a regular routine for them.

“This is all rather _considerate_ of you, Zim.”

Zim catches onto the attitude in Dib’s tone and presses a sharp thumb into his skin. “Do _not_ question Zim’s intentions.”

There is a warmth in Dib’s face that isn’t because of the overbearing sun. He bites the inside of his cheek and refrains from snapping at him. “You still could have asked. It’s polite.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Zim’s grip on Dib’s frozen fist tightens, twisting his arm and holding it at an angle inspection. One hand rummaging through the dash’s ruins, Zim’s hand travels up the length of Dib’s palm, forces his fingers to splay open and gives it a look. His eyes linger on the underside of Dib’s wrist. “By Irken birthright, I take back what is mine.”

“Irkens are rude.” Dib blows air out of his nose, sitting on the dash and eyeing Zim as the alien pulls a grey strip of something from the dash, wrapping it around his wrist and inspecting it thoughtfully. “You know, I may have totally been down to help you with your projects, if you had asked like a decent pers-whoa, hey, will you PLEASE fucking stop that?” Dib yanks his hand away, rubbing the red line around his wrist where Zim had tightened it around his skin. “Freak.”

“Says the human with the gargantuan scaled head.” Zim tuts at him, sticking out his tongue while quickly stashing the strip into his pocket. It disappears from sight, joining whatever else Zim has been able to stuff inside his pockets during the scavenging. As much as Dib wanted to gill him to see what other junk he’s stolen, he has a feeling that Zim wouldn’t put up with his insistence.

Zim continues to pluck various tidbits of material out from the dash, including a few screens and stowing them into his Pak. A comfortable silence settles in between the claws scaping the remains and Dib further inspects the damage, sitting slumped in his half-finished ship under the shade of the garage and over looks as the sky turns from blue to pink and orange as dusk approached. It painted the backyard a pretty warm color, falling over the scattered metal that’s been thrown about in the grass. Trees bristle softly in the wind. It feels like a peaceful moment, despite the frustration still present in him.

“Don’t be angry with Zim.” Zim speaks and it’s softer than what Dib is used to. “I just wanted to make our adventures together easier.”

“Adventures.” Dib repeats, sighing through his nose. The look on Zim’s face, although not facing him fully, looks the taddest bit odd. If Dib didn’t know any better, he would call it guilt. “I can be a little angry. You’re not good at this whole communication thing.”

In the most dramatic, hushed way that only Zim can achieve, he turns to Dib with the look of upmost offense. “Are you accusing Zim of incompetence?!”

“Maybe” Dib watches as Zim glances at him from the corner of his eye, attempting to stuff the rejected wiring back inside the dash, covering it with the metal. After a few clunks, he gives up, and the front is resigned to looking like a mess. “I was looking for you earlier.”

Zim sits on the opposite of him, casually cocking a hairless eyebrow. “Oh?”

“New assignment.” Dib smiles. Zim squints at the warmth of it. “I don’t think you’ll like this one.”

Exasperation is immediate in the alien’s face. “I don’t really like any of the ones you receive. They’re all either suicide missions sending you to your immediate demise, or something stupid. Stupid enough that Zim questions if your organization is being run by a maggot.” He thinks for a minute. “Expect for the bee mission. Zim liked the bee mission.”

“I thought you hated bees.”

“I _do_ hate the bees, which is why I took great pleasure in squishing the tiny, insignificant creature to _goo_.” He gimmicks the motion with his fingertips, crushing an imaginary bee between them repeatedly. “Vampire bees are no match for Zim’s greatness.”

“If by ‘greatness’, you mean you screaming bloody murder and flailing at it, then yeah, you’re pretty great.” Dib rolls his eyes, pulling at the collar of shirt. A shrug of his shoulders, his trench coat comes off and he folds it into his lap. The air felt cooler on his skin. “Paste makes you immune to water, right? To the pollutants in it?”

Zim’s eyes narrow, leaning forwards a bit in apprehension. “Yes.”

“Good, cause we’re going to the beach.”

A pause, an acorn drops on top of the garage and tumbles to the dirt below. Then Zim is laughing incoherently in Dib’s face. Dib watches patiently, and with a hint of amusement, as Zim clutches his stomach in what can only be assumed to be panicked laughter, before cutting off abruptly with full seriousness and giving Dib a death glare. “ _Absolutely not_.”

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Dib tries, digging through the pockets of the trench coat and plucking out the reports. He thrust them in Zim’s direction, who hisses at the paper with great distaste and even going as far as to swat at them like a disgruntled cat. “Listen, the subject is an aquatic creature, but that doesn’t mean _you_ have to get in the water.” He waves the paper around, invading the alien’s personal space and even poking him in the chest with it. “We don’t even have to do much, just confirm it’s existence. That’s all.”

“Lies! LIES! You think Zim is stupid?” The alien snatches the paper from his hands (a bit too quickly, Dib thinks, as he feels the blood from a paper cut begin to welt from a finger) Zim’s eyes roam the pages, quickly scanning through the text and flipping through them faster than it took Dib to stick his finger in his mouth. “These assignment always have some sort of loopholes! Find the creature, sure. Then they’ll want us to sedate it, kill it, or collect some sort of icky, gross, organic property of it for study! Zim is NOT a lackey.”

Purple contacts land on the picture of said subject and his expression morphs into a mixture of confusion and light disgust. “They want us to confirm _that_? What is… _that_?!” He looks up to Dib with apparent alarm. “You humans mate with _fish_?”

Dib nearly chokes and talks with his finger tucked into one side of his cheek. “No, you disgusting lizard. Read the background report.”

Zim still looks at him with distaste, but flips back to the original side. He scans over it again, and then a second time. Dib sees the alien’s mouth move silently like trying to sound out the word in his head tongue before saying it out loud. Zim looks up at him. “We just need to confirm the existence of this…fish woman-?”

“Mermaid.” Dib corrects. He pops his finger out of his mouth, the line of blood disappeared.

“Whatever.” Zim lips turn up at the sight. “And that’s it?”

“We go there, we find it, or not. And that’s the end.” Dib smiles, keeping his tone light even as Zim views him with distrust. “We just need a picture of it. Or an audio recording. Honestly, if we can just say that we were there and we saw it, that might even suffice. But I would really _like_ to get a picture of it.” He starts off, changing tone when Zim rolls his eyes, “But you don’t have to go.”

The alien scoffs at him. “ _You_ don’t have to go. Just tell your Swollen Eyeball overlords they’re dumb and throw this away.” He waves the paper up. “Make THEM be the ones to shift through the polluted acid that covers this planet. See how THEY like it.”

Dib’s smile turns into a frown. It’s not as harsh as a reaction as he expected, but still similar to the answer he thought he would get. Still, he can do this mission without Zim, as he’s done many before, and his partner’s hesitance wasn’t going to be something that got in the way of his paranormal findings. It’s not like Dib was walking into it blind here. “I’m going, with or without you.”

“Figured.” Zim scoffs at him, tossing the bundle of papers back into Dib’s chest and hopping over the side of the ship. He waves a hand over his shoulder, bits and pieces of the ship he managed to steal falling out of his pockets and getting lost forever into the grass. “Very well, go! Go drown in the schmillions and billions of poo and fossils in your filthy, polluted earth sea, choking on your own stubbornness, Dib! I hope whatever fish creature decides to make you it’s dinner doesn’t have taste, or it will be sourly disappointed!”

“Hey!” Dib leans over the dash, yelling out as Zim hooks his claws into the holds around the detached pilot’s seat and begins to drag it across the yard. “You’re just pissed because you probably don’t know how to swim and you’re trying to hide it!” His response is a outward groan and Dib smirks at the reaction. He leaps over the dash, nearly tripping over himself until he can run after him. “And I bet I’m pretty tasty!”

Zim has dragged the seat all the way to the sidewalk in front of the house, leaving long dirt marks where it trailed from the backyard to the front. “WRONG! You taste like sad and ugly!”

“How would you know?!”

Sharp teeth bare at him. “Do you want Zim to double check?!”

Dib is about a foot away from grabbing a hold of the pilot’s seat and preventing Zim’s abduction of it when something smacks into the back of his head, putting him off balance and making him stumble over his own feet until he’s face to face with the concrete. Groaning, Dib adjusts his (thankfully, unbroken) glasses and sits up, registers Zim’s amused laughter joining the scrape of metal against sidewalk and falls his gaze to his attacker.

A stuffed bunny rabbit make-shifted into a security weapon stares up at him, and Dib hears a loud gruff from the upstairs window. “Will the two of you shut up?” Gaz is leaning out of her room, headset askew and annoyance in her face. “I’m trying to stream and the only shit my mic can pick up is the two of you being morons out here!”

“He broke my ship!” Dib exclaims, pointing at the ever so obvious alien slowly trying to drag the pilot’s seat back to his base. (Something very, very obviously alien and yet not a single one of his neighbors peeked a head outside, and even if they did, they’d probably not care either way.)

Zim waves up at his apparent savior with a toothy grin. “Gaz human! Hit the Dib again!”

The purple haired hair snarls at the both of them, shuts the window with enough force to for a small crack to appear in the glass and disappears again. Dib shakes his head, rises from the concrete and turns back around to see…Zim already down the street and turning the corner with a shit-eating grin and the pilot’s seat in tow, far enough where Dib didn’t have the energy to chase after him while just close enough that he could hear the mocking laughter.

Dib cups his hands around his mouth. “Wait! What did you do to Tak’s AI in the ship!?”

The small Zim in the distance pauses for a second, and looks at the far off Dib with a look of uncertainty. In case the alien didn’t hear correctly, Dib sticks two fingers on top of his head and curls them at the end. Zim’s face lightens up, a sinister smile on his face and raises a hand. With three fingers, he gives Dib the Irken equivalent of a ‘thumbs down’. Yeah, that totally didn’t answer his actual question.

Dib sighs, dusts off his clothes and turns heel back to the dismantled Irken ship to inspect the rest of Zim’s theft damages.

* * *

There is a toddler seat in the backseat of Dib’s truck. A Hello-Kitty one, to be exact.

It wasn’t there this morning and Dib has no memory of ever purchasing one, nor ever having the a reason to purchase one, and yet there it was: already strapped in behind the passenger’s seat, tacky and out of place between the dull colors of the faded leather of the seats and tinted windows. Dib stares at it dumbly, one hand still holding the handle of the car door swung open, the other gripped on the strap of his bag he had full intention to toss inside before the unusual sight greeted him.

Amber eyes immediately scan the rest of the backseat only to find it empty, then scanning the rest of the surrounding area too. He looks to the rooftop of his own house, the single tree in his yard the squirrels haven’t completely taken over yet, to the fences a few yards down and every place in plain sight he might see green before his findings come up empty and he settles his gaze back on the car seat again. Dib blinks at it, notes the oddity, and sets the bag down into the floor board instead.

“Sure am excited to go on this road trip!” Dib talks out loud and makes doubly sure his voice is dramatic as possible. “Can’t wait to meet all the mermaids and join their super cool mermaid gang at the bottom of the ocean where stupid, green Invader’s aren’t allowed because one threatened to cannibalize me yesterday!”

The recycling bin at the end of the driveway knocks itself over, Zim’s head popping out of the lid. “LIES! You spew slander about Zim! You take my words out of context!”

Gaz walks up behind him, bag slung over her shoulder, and he doesn’t need to turn around to know she’s looking at the car seat and agitated alien with the same amount of exasperation that he has. “What’s the deal with this garbage?” A pause. “I didn’t mean to make that pun.”

He takes her bag, sets it on top of his own and shuts the car door. “Zim is coming with us.”

Said alien has halted in his accusations only to yell out Irken profanities trying to unstuck himself from the trash bin. To no one’s surprise, nothing trash-wise falls out when he finally gets free, the inside showing itself clean and spotless (and judging by the poorly painted Irken symbol on the underside of the lid, clearly a replacement disguise for their actual recycling bin that Zim had whipped up) it does, however, reveal the tiny robot wrapped in Zim’s arms when he tumbles out, one of the Invader’s sleeves stuck against it’s mouth in order to keep him quiet even as their cover was blown.

Gaz watches the scrambling with equal distaste even as the alien uprights himself, wide nervous smile, and pretends that nothing out of the ordinary was present. There’s drool on his arm where Gir has been gnawing on. “Thought you said he made it pretty clear he wasn’t coming.”

Zim straightens his posture with the confidence of someone who literally didn’t just crawl out of a trashcan. “Yes, Well! Luckily for both of you, Zim has changed his mind and now you can sit with my presence for hours like you’ve always dreamed of. I know, I know, it’s generous of me.” He waves his hands out when he talks in a wide gesture, as if accepting some sort of praise. Gir hangs off one of the arms still attached by the teeth and kicks his little robot feet in the air. “Zim had some…hesitance about the destination but an Invader fears NOTHING! Not war, not death, and not your Earth oceans, no matter how-” He gags, “FILTHY and ACIDIC it is! So do not worry, your future overlord will accompany you on your little ‘vacation’.”

Dib stares at him with the slightest of a twitch in his eye. Gaz has already made her way around the truck and slid into the passenger’s seat to claim shotgun, buckling her seat belt, powering up her game slave and ignoring the alien’s monologueing completely. Zim takes this silence as an apparent applause. “I can feel your pathetic human bodies just bursting with excitement! You are welcome.”

With a deep breath, Dib flips the recycling bin back upwards, and begins to approach Zim with ill intent. “You’re going back in the bin.”

* * *

Half an hour of wrestling each other in the front yard and being yelled at their collective neighbors together until Gaz threatened to run the both of them over, they’re at a thrift store picking out a set of summer wear for the alien and his respective Sir unit because Zim doesn’t quite understand that wearing an Invader’s Uniform to the beach wasn’t something that ‘normal’ humans do (Zim immediately goes on a rampant about the important of not blowing his cover, and demands assistance in choosing swimwear), and Gaz made the threat of skinning them both alive if either one of them dared to embarrass her in public.

Dib pays for it of course, because Zim’s idea of ‘shopping’ is running inside of the store, making Gir knock something over for a distraction, grabbing whatever suited his fancy and making a bolt for it. Dib doesn’t even blink at the behavior, simply lets the alien scramble back to the truck cackling like a menace while he approaches the scared retail worker with a debt card at the ready. Gir scuttles underneath them carrying something pink and frilly in his paws and he sighs and tells the worker to add that to his ticket too.

Another half hour after that, they’re on the road.

Gaz is completely set up to ignore the both of them for the entire duration of the trip, earbuds in and Game Slave fully charged, reclined all the way back in the passenger’s seat (not that it mattered, since Gir was seated behind her and he didn’t exactly need any leg room) and blocking out the rest of the world. Dib can hear a few beeps here and there of her leveling up her character and doesn’t miss the blur of green inching over his shoulder, closer to the girl’s spot and peering over onto her screen.

Dib jabs an elbow back and hits Zim without looking away from the road. “Seat belt.”

His response is a muted grumble. “Your stupid earth vehicle’s contraptions are uncomfortable.” Zim protests. Dib opens his mouth to scold again, but he hears the click of metal and the slink of the alien sitting back in his seat, clearly displeased, but buckled in. Still, he can hear Zim fidget in place, legs bumping up against the back of the driver’s seat and claws lightly raking over the texture of the seats (he better not have left marks, Dib did not have the money to have the interior replaced.)

A glance at Gir through the rear view mirror; the Sir unit was preoccupied with a attached from a cord coming from it’s head, tablet playing a familiar cartoon, the soft sound of it streaming as the robot’s eyes stayed glued to the screen. He’s also got a bag of fundip sitting in his lap and spilling over out of the car seat and smearing everywhere else, a mess that Zim won’t touch and Dib will probably have to clean up.

Driving is monotonous and boring sometimes, but at least it gave Dib something to do. Zim chews on the strings of his hoodie, fiddling with the clothes he rightfully ‘stole’ and picking at the buttons. Red swim trunks, a pale yellow button up with pink flowers on it and some sunglasses he keeps folding open and closed. Dib quietly wonders if the extra pair of flip flops they’d pack might fit him.

Eyes on the road, he feels a kick on the back of his seat. “Zim is bored.”

Dib sighs, refrains from answering just for a second so he doesn’t miss their exit, and shoots a look into the mirror. “Not my problem. Don’t distract me while I drive. I don’t want to kill us all.”

He hears something akin to a scoff, the slump of Zim sinking further into his seat and the burn of Gaz’s glare when he accidentally comes to a stop sign a little too fast. “Earth transportation is so primitive. No autopilot, no safety measures aside from your ‘belts’ and ‘bags of air’. One mistake could be your demise.” The pride in his voice is enough to know that he’s going on a spiel of Irken superiority again. “An your driving is horrible. It makes Zim’s stomach churn.”

Dib resists the urge to roll his eyes and cuts him off at the start. “If it bothers you so much, you could have just taken the Voot.”

“…The Voot is under maintenance. It would be unwise to try and fly it before it is finished.” A pause. “Let Zim drive the car.”

Dib nearly jolts from the sudden request. “No.”

“Yes! Let Zim drive the car!” Another kick in the back of his seat, Dib refrains from turning around and sticks to the far right of the road. “Zim let you touch the Voot’s controls! Zim can pilot this thing better than you, I can get us there faster! Your future overlord demands-!”

Something shuts Zim up before Dib can, and he’s very careful to not look away from the traffic whilst still registering his sister swiveling in her seat and glaring down at Zim with the fiery intensity of seven hell. Or the fury of a teenage girl having her game interrupted by a temperamental alien. “If you don’t want your stupid green head to go through the windshield, shut up.” Gaz scolds, a grit in her teeth. “Also, you can take off your disguise. The windows are tinted. No one is gonna be able to tell you’re an alien.”

A pause. “…Not saying that humans aren’t inherently stupid, but how do you know they won’t see Zim’s amazing self and report him to the authorities?”

“We’ll just tell them you’re a cosplayer or something.” Gaz replies. Dib fights back a snort. “It’ll work.”

A grumble in Irken (that immediately ceases when Gaz’s stare hardens, even though she doesn’t understand a word of it) and Dib hears a shift and something being set to the side. The metallic click of Pak legs extending, hitting the ceiling of truck and tucking back into the alien’s Pak. Zim’s disguise has been stashed away, antenna sticking up and just barely reaching the ceiling when they stand at their full height.

Silence settles for a few seconds again, Gaz returning to her game’s save point. Dib briefly thinks about turning on the radio, maybe music, anything really to break the monotone when the sound of something being harshly unzipped.

“Why does your bag smell like a middle school hallway?” Zim comments, shuffling sounds that can only be attributed to the alien rummaging through his belongings, destroying the order and plucking out anything that held his attention for more than five seconds before hardily tossing it back inside in favor for something else. In the blur of the mirror, Zim holds up a shirt. “The Loch Ness is Real.” He reads outloud, tossing to the side to continue his quest. “How fitting.”

Dib refrains from replying (What? The Loch Ness WAS real!) and instead focuses where he should, sending glances in the rear view mirror only when it’s safe and listening to Zim invade his personal belongings. The alien didn’t really know personal boundaries or bubbles, though Dib at least hoped he had the sense to fold everything back inside the bag neatly. The sound of paper crinkling, and he can hear Zim slumping back and flipping through the pages of his prize.

A few moments of page flipping. It stops, and Zim speaks up. “How do LIVE like that? Completely surrounded by fifth and litter by the inhabitants of this planet.” Disgust in his tone. He must be looking through the report again. “If I were one of these inferior fish creatures, I think I’d eat humans too.”

“You’re thinking of Sirens.” Dib corrects. “And that’s only a speculation.”

“Whats the difference? They look alike! You expect this ‘si-ren’ to introduce themselves as one before they attack? They eat humans, Dib! Zim can read, moron and it says it right here! Stinky, stupid human men!” The flat side of the papers smacks him on the top of his head and Dib can do nothing but pout as Zim wacks him lightly with the report. “They feast on your pitiful flesh and leave the remains for their ugly, tadpole babies to snack on!”

“You know that there’s more to the myths than just preying on human men, right?” Dib cranes his neck away and blindly swats behind him to deter the alien. The car wobbles a bit and Gaz shoots them both a glare that could rival the sun. “Some myths say they sing to lure sailors to their death. Some of them say they can shape-shift. One report said they learn the tongue of any human being they talk to instantly, to persuade them into…” A pause, he thinks for a moment. “Anything, actually. They’re supposed to be influential creatures.”

“Not impressive. Zim can speak many inferior languages with his Pak.” The breath on his neck is uncomfortable, and Dib registers Zim leaning forwards from his seat, nearly poking his head into the hole between the headrest and the seat. “Zim is also very persuasive.”

Dib rolls his eyes. “Pak abilities don’t count. It’s not magical.”

“The Pak is better than any phony ‘magical’ ability some trash-fish might have.” Zim pulls back. “Gaz-human!”

Interrupted, the girl shoots a amber eyed glare towards the alien who meets her irritation with nothing less than a smile. Dib feels a claw poke the back of his neck. “The Dib’s head is massively large and so full of nothing but air. Do you think he will float like an ugly, bobble head in the ocean? We could use him as bait for the mermaid creature!”

Gaz is already in the middle of saying ‘yes’ when Dib groans out loud, cutting them both off and throwing an arm back to swat Zim into sitting back in his seat (and to push him to re-buckle the seat belt that he’s probably taken off) “She’s not even with us for the assignment!”

His sister adds onto the fact. “And I really don’t give a shit either way.”

A thoughtful hmm from the alien. “Zim was wondering. Why is the Gaz-sister here?”

Before Dib could speak, Gaz beats him to it. “Because the both of you are complete morons that don’t know the definition of _subtly_.” Her tone carries annoyance and mockery. Gaz shifts in her seat, mouth curled up in the inkling of a sneer and glares at the alien. Dib would probably have to suffer the heat of her stare too if he didn’t have the excuse of driving to look away from her. “Dad won’t let Dib go on any of his dumb ‘missions’ anymore, no excuses. So as long as I’m here, we can tell him it’s a tiny ‘family vacation’. Dib can do his mermaid hunting, you do-” She waves a hand in Zim’s general direction. “whatever idiot shit that you do with him.”

Zim blanks in confusion.“Why does the Dib have this sudden restriction?”

Dib sinks into his seat a bit. “It’s only because he doesn’t like me going after the paranormal.”

“No, Dib.” Gaz’s voice turns sour. “It’s because every time you leave, you’ve either nearly died, or I wake up to find you flown off to another country, you’re waking up everyone in the house so you can fly off into space at wee-fucking hours in the morning, or you’re dragging a weird corpse into the house because you think it’s a werewolf and you want to try and bring it back from the dead for an _interview_.” She grates, turning to Zim and jabbing a thumb into her brother’s arm. There’s a grin of mockery on her face. “For the record, it turned out to be a Halloween decoration.”

There’s a choking sound that sounds suspiciously like Zim holding back laughter. Dib takes a deep breath. “That was only one time!”

Gaz’s game sits closed, an usual feat to see while the alien and girl alike band together to mock Dib. Said investigator eventually turns on the radio to tune the both of them out, but it only resulted in Zim insulting him even louder.

Gir is still heavily entrapped with whatever program he was watching (though the music has stopped for a while now and Dib is pretty sure that the Sir unit has just been staring at the end credits for a few minutes now) Gaz makes a few jabs here and there, some of which is harmless enough that even Dib laughs at, and the siblings occasionally gang up on the alien himself. Zim laughs at their attempt, spews some nonsense about world domination (Dib purposely runs over a pothole so the alien’s head smacks into the truck’s ceiling, and scolds him for complaining when he’s not even wearing a seat-belt) occasionally thumbing through the report again and ever so often, pressing his knee against the spot where Dib backs rests through the driver’s seat.

* * *

Somewhere between the bickering and the snickering, Gir breaks free of the cartoon induced trance and loudly proclaims he’s going to ‘upchuck little babies (which, Zim quickly tells him that the Sir unit was probably ready to throw up nachos and syrup and other sticky horrors all over the interior of Dib’s truck) and the three are forced to pull over to the nearest rest stop.

After a few minutes of holding a regurgitating Sir unit over a community trash can, it’s best decided they might as well take a rest break.

The bathrooms smell of bleach and sanitary solutions though they look far from being clean, and the there’s spots dotting across the mirror when Dib washes his hands, prods at his own eye bags before exiting. There’s a vending machine outside, filled to the brim with snacks he doesn’t care to remember the name of, picks out two bars that remotely looks like chocolate and returns to the parking spot. Him and Gaz were taking turns, because neither of them trusted Zim to be alone in the car without him trying to dismantle the air conditioning.

Gaz and Zim are locked in conversation, and Gir is sitting upside down in his car seat, tears dotting the corner of his eyes even though it should be logically impossible for a robot to cry.

“So, hypothetically speaking, if there was…say, a device that could project these games of yours into playable holograms…” Zim speaks, leaning casually forwards and looking at his claws like they’ve just been manicured. “What games would the Gaz want to play?”

Gaz doesn’t look up from the Game Slave. “All of them.”

Zim’s smile tweaks just a bit, but he keeps the casual facade going. “Yes, yes of course. But! If you had to choose favorites, say…” He thinks for a moment, mulling over imaginary titles and using one hand to pat Gir’s tummy when the Sir unit begins to whine. “The Vampire Pig slayer! Or, the one with the crossing animals, yes? Any game! But it has to be, eh, _superior_ than the rest, if you could only choose a few-”

“All of them.” Gaz repeats.

‘Yes, yes, you have mastery of many games.“ Zim laughs, though it sounds forced. ”But if you can’t have all of them, which of those simulations are preferable than the others-

“All of them.”

A hand drags down the alien’s face, pulling at the skin and dislodging one of the contacts he’s had to put back in to keep up disguises. He grumbles something with a stretched smile, a frustrated look and tries again. “ _Yes_ , but you cannot tell me ‘ _all_ ’ of the games, for Zim does ask to know of ‘ _all_ ’ games, he asks which ones are favorable to the Gaz.”

She thinks for a long moment. Dib slides into the driver’s side as she opens her door, lets out a long ‘hmm’ and turns to answer as she leaves for the restrooms. “All of them.”

Zim yells something incomprehensible in Irken, fists curled up into balls and shaking them at her retreating back. “GIVE ZIM A CLEAR ANSWER YOU INSOLENT LITTLE WORM-”

A chocolate bar smacks him in the face. Zim shuts up, face frozen in distress as the plastic wrapping slides against his skin and plops down in his lap. A second passes and the alien finally breaks out of his comical trance. “You dare ATTACK Zim with this-?!” He grabs the bar, holds it up like displaying a murder weapon and loudly proclaims to the only two people in the car. “Sugar bar?!”

“You’re welcome.” Dib watches his sister disappear, leaning over the back seat (and ignoring Zim’s choke of protest when he has to partially crawl over him) in order to set the second chocolate on Gir’s tummy. “I don’t know what robots eat, but it might make you feel better to have something in your…stomach. Thing. Whatever you have.”

“I _told_ him not to eat too much before we left but does ANYONE listen to Zim? No! No, they do not!” Zim crosses his arms, speaking with a partial bit of chocolate sticking out of his own mouth. The Sir unit’s quiet blubbering ceases to a near inaudible wheezing, finally notices the offering on his body and is quick to tear open the wrapping, shoving the entirety of in his mouth. Zim cringes at the sight. “Remind me later to program this ‘carsickness’ faulty out of you.”

Gir smacks his lips together in a way that shouldn’t be physically possible. “I’m gonna put seashells in my head!”

Zim nods, reaches over and buckles the still-upside down Gir into his seat again. “Yes…we shall collect the exoskeletons of snails and clams. The humans will never stand a chance against my undead army of oysters.”

Gir rumbles something incomprehensible about zombie fish and Dib tunes it out, checking his phone and slumping in his seat. When Gaz gets back, they’ll hit the road again and it won’t be much longer before they arrive. It’ll be late afternoon by the time they get to the beach, so they’ll spend the rest of the daylight there, find a motel or somewhere else to sleep, spend however long they needed in order to get the evidence they needed and drive back home. Considering that Zim and his robot didn’t really need sleep, that made searching for hotel rooms a little bit cheaper.

Something sharp drags along the back of his neck and goosebumps shoot across Dib’s skin, jolting in his seat and swiveling quickly around to glare at his assailant. “What.”

Zim has his face pressed close, eyes peering through the hole between the headrest and the seat, purple pupils narrowed at him. “Dib” He taps his claws against the leather, ignoring the look Dib gives him as the human rubs the back of his neck. “Are you still angry with Zim?”

Dib pauses, letting his hand fall back to his lap. “What kind of dumb question is that?”

“Answer the question, meat-boy.”

“Don’t call me that.” Dib frowns, but shifts in his seat so he meats Zim eye level, cheek pressed against the leather and sighs. “What makes you think I’m still mad at you?”

Zim fidgets. There’s an unnatural hesitation about him, a tension in his shoulders that Dib can barely see from the angle. Though, his mouth is pressed into a thin line. His gaze doesn’t break though silence fills the car for a moment (save for Gir’s lip smacking, of course) and Dib waits patiently for Zim to find the words he searches for.

It takes a second too long, and Dib himself starts to feel nervous. “I’m not mad at you.”

A soft, pittering sound. Zim is tapping his claws against his pants leg where Dib can’t see. The alien thinks for a moment. “I would like to discuss something with you.”

“Now?” Dib cocks an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have done this earlier?”

“You were still upset with Zim, stupid boy.”

“I thought you liked it when I’m upset, alien scum.”

“Unfortunately, I want your input to be unbiased.” A sharp grin curls up the corner’s of Zim’s mouth. “But you _are_ very amusing when you’re angry.”

A finger pops up and Dib thwacks the middle of his face where his nose would be if he had one. Zim doesn’t recoil, but he does flinch and the smile he carries turns into a teeth barring grimace. Dib snickers at the Irken curse that breathes through the alien’s speech and leans back, out of range for the Invader to retaliate. “Okay, well you have my attention. What is so important?”

Zim’s face scrunches up, rubbing the sore spot on his face. Dib expects an insult or even a reach over for the alien to try and get a hit back at him, but instead, Zim stays and looks….Off. The mocking smile Dib has falls into uncertainty when he see’s little movements in his cheeks, like a tongue rolling over in his mouth searching for a way to phrase something he’s not sure how to. Dib can feel hesitance, it’s like looking into a mirror. “You okay?”

The reaction is immediate, the Invader whipping his head up. “Don’t be idiotic. I am simply….” He mulls for a moment, tapping his chin. “I am simply thinking of a way to word this so your pathetic meat brain can comprehend what I’m saying, obviously.”

Dib shrugs. “Try me.”

Zim opens his mouth, though nothing comes out. Amber eyes blink at the action and purple eyes start to dart from the four windows of the truck, land on an approaching figure and widen. “Later.” Zim mumbles, leans away from the headrest and busies himself with buckling his seat belt. “Zim will tell you later.”

Gaz opens the car door, slides into the passenger seat with a bag of chips in one hand, and a poop cola in the other, and buckles in. “Alright, lets go ahead and go.”

Although suspicions run wild in his head, Dib starts the engine and trip continues.

Eventually the thoughts drown out between the sounds of Gaz’s Game Slave, Zim cautiously peering over her shoulder and giving her instructions on how to kill the final boss (which are not well received, mind you. She knows what she’s doing and Zim was really just itching to be involved in the violence.) and besides the one incident where Gir climbs across the backseat, manages to plop himself into Dib’s lap and roll down the window, and Dib has to deal with both driving on the interstate and preventing this small crazy robot from being sucked out of the truck just because he likes to stick his head out like a dog.

Between the bickering and the occasional insult to the size of his cranium, it was actually kinda nice. Hopefully it's like this for the rest of the trip.

The beach they were heading too wasn’t popular by all means, if anything it was trashed and not exactly the best place for tourist, which made it the perfect spot for anything lurking the waters to go undetected. Dib didn’t expect the sands to be populated, at least too much, considering the location’s appearance. On a secluded piece of the shore, far away from the mass of blankets and umbrellas and where families like to dwell, there is part where the water is shallow and the rocks are jagged. Coupled with dangerous waters and sea caves that border the cliff side walls, Swollen Eyeball made it pretty clear that this was the place it would be likely to find a mermaid. Watching, observing, for whatever purpose they might have.

If there was anything more truthful about the myths, it was that mermaids were just as curious about humans as humans were to them. Dib was sure of it.

In the report, there are blurry pictures of shapes, figures through the water darting behind the rocks, molding with the sea foam and weaving through the waves. Images and artworks of beautiful women, reports of lullaby drifting up from out on the sea, carried by the wind and onto the shore. Friendly, curious and even intelligent creatures. And all he needed to do was find one.


	2. Sinking Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dib is trying to move forward with the investigation, despite Zim's weird, paranoid and insistent behavior, and Gaz is trying to ignore them both. But after a brief encounter with a mermaid, tensions arise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this and then taking a nap. Also, be aware that this chapter ventures more so into romantic ZaDr territory, though I'll still be writing them within my boundaries.
> 
> Note: Chapter contains descriptions of violence, drowning, blood and the whatnot. Just be aware of the main tags.

The rest of the road trip is a mixture of yelling, swerving, making a conscious effort to keep Gir from throwing himself out of the window to go concrete sledding, and Gaz threatening to skin Zim alive for trying to steal her game system on a total of sixteen times. Dib counted.

But aside from the chaos, it was nice to have other voices in the car with him during long drives. Usually he just listens to podcasts about the paranormal, drones out on the road or even sits in the silence when he rides out to his investigations. It’s a bit of a change when you have not just your sister criticizing your driving, but also an alien reading out loud the investigation’s notes repeatedly, criticizing the data and constantly making remarks about how a ‘fish-human could have ever been conceived’ whilst giving the humans in the car a disgusted look. Dib wouldn’t exactly call it an improvement from his regular routine, but it was certainly something different.

Zim is in the middle of spiel about the magic involved in the myths when the destination comes into view, and Dib lets out a none-too obvious sigh of relief as the beach comes closer. There’s a parking lot reserved for beach-goers not too far of a walk from the initial spot, so Dib snags the spot that will save them the most walking distance, puts the car in park and swivels around in his seat. “Okay, we’re here. I’m assuming everyone already knows the plan?”

Gir puts up two thumbs and sticks out a tongue. Gaz grunts something incomprehensible as she shuts the Game Slave off and stuffs it into her bag. She jostles the bag hard enough it smacks Zim in the head as she brings it out (the alien curses her at it for it but does nothing further when he receives one of her trademark glares) and digs through it with the car door propped open. The contents are similar packing to what Dib has: common clothes, spare clothes for the night, sunscreen and sunglasses, phone and game console chargers, the usual what you would find in a trip bag. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m not here for mythical mermaids.”

Zim nods in agreement, raising the crinkled file up for emphasis. “Zim finds the Gaz’s lack of enthusiasm for the investigation inspiring. Let’s leave.”

Dib rolls his eyes. “Haha. You’re both hilarious. Let’s go.” He spares a look to his sister, who was smart enough to wear her bathing suit and cover up prior to the road trip, while Zim was still in his uniform and Dib, although in summer clothes, wasn’t in anything close to a swimsuit. “We should probably find a restroom where we can cha- _Oh, fuck Zim!_ ” Dib scrambles out of driver’s seat, hearing his sister doing the same and making an active effort not to look through the windows and keeping his gaze outwards. “You’re supposed to wait until we get somewhere private to change! Or at least until we leave!”

Zim is already partially undressed, uncaring, and confusion in his voice when he calls back at the realization that the other inhabitants of the car have retreated. “NONSENSE. Too much extra work. Zim cares not for your modesty rituals.” Scuffling, the sound of cloth shifting in the car. Gaz walks around to stand besides Dib (also keeping her eyes adverted, and with a very annoyed look on her face to boot) “Your pathetic eyes just can’t handle the sheer AMAZING-NESS of your future overlord’s form! Stay out there and cower for all I care.”

Dib and Gaz keep their backs to the windows, equal exasperation on their faces as they wait. His sister mutters under her breath as Dib runs a hand down his face. “Does he do this often?”

Memories of Zim bursting into Dib’s room without so much of a knock, no matter if be hospital room or otherwise, undressing in the Voot, casually and uncaring when Dib and him had to dress their wounds before going to breakfast. Suddenly, the lack of understanding human norms makes sense. “Sometimes.”

Gaz wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

Dib hears a bag unzipping from inside the truck and concludes that Zim is most likely stealing a pair of his flip flops. “We probably won’t be here more than a day, give or take.” He reassures his sister, though he knows from the look on her face that it’s taken lightly. “We just need a little data about the creature, assuming it’s even out there, _which it is_ -” He quickly adds when she sends him a sideways glance. “Honestly, the bare minimal of evidence is what we’re required to get. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Knowing you, you’re not going to stop at the ‘bare minimal’” Gaz remarks.

“Maybe.” Dib’s lips curl up into a excited smile. “I brought something that will detect it’s movement in the water, and track it if we get a hold of it. Maybe catch onto some patterns, see how close it gets to shore and where it goes when it leaves, what times it visits during the day.” The deadpan glare Gaz gives him is not enough to ruin his grin. “Just a little bit of data.”

If there was anyone Dib could count on for a lack of reaction, it was Gaz. Her mouth thins into a line and she huffs. “Just a little bit of data.” She repeats, with the slightest hint of an attitude. “Ever think about finding another hobby that doesn’t include obsessing over mythical bullshit and having a dumb-ass cryptid as your best buddy?”

Dib blows a raspberry at her. “Ever think of finding another hobby that doesn’t include screaming at a video game and getting into fights with people online?”

Gaz opens her mouth to retort, but it cuts off into a chuckle when the truck door flies open, smacks Dib in the ass hard enough for him to stumble forwards with an ‘oof’, and Zim steps out of the vehicle akin to walking on the red carpet looking the absolute _stupidest_ that Dib has ever seen him. “Behold! Your overlord has conducted a disguise to blend in effortlessly with the humans!” He tips his hat, a straw one with a pink flower on the rim, that Dib doesn’t remember him getting. “Impressive, yes?”

Rubbing his behind, Dib looks him up and down. Zim is wearing red trunks, a flowered shirt, the whole tourist get-up pulled together and stuck onto one, obviously green alien on a bright summer day. It’s starting to feel like he’s staring at the start of a Dizney movie. The worst part of it is knowing that not a single person aside from him and his sister, if they came across them, would think twice about Zim being a regular human being.

Gir tumbles out of the car, fully decked in a pink, frilly bikini in his dog suit, face plants on the concrete and screams something about seagulls muffled into the ground. “I’m gonna make friends with a Jellyfish!”

“Jellyfish?” Zim rolls Gir over with his foot and shoots the siblings a questioning glance. “You have fish made of Jelly in your oceans? Is _that_ where you humans harvest your jelly from?! _”_

Dib shoves past him, crawls inside the truck, stepping over the mess on the floorboards Zim has made with his bag and praying that the tinted windows are enough to prevent any on-lookers from spying in (not that there were any around, but the alien didn’t have a sense of privacy) and shuts the door right as the Invader becomes more and more paranoid at his lack of an answer.

Two minutes later, a rush between changing into his swimsuit and checking every five seconds to see if there was a peeping Zim, Dib exits the truck and (thankfully) finds the alien and his sister standing a few feet away, locked in conversation. Zim is holding the report still, wrinkled and creased by constant flipping and scrutiny, his sister barley acknowledging the alien’s rambling, more focused on the fact that Gir was currently trying to pick a fight with a beetle that had landed on Zim’s Pak. He can tell she refrains a laugh when the Sir-unit slaps it, Zim yelping before swiveling around to scold the robot for his behavior.

A smile forms on his face that he didn’t give permission to form. Dib double checks the gear in his bag, slings it over his shoulder and locks the truck up. “Alright, let’s go. It’s already four o’clock and they cut curfew at this beach at ten.”

The sidewalks are mostly empty, and it doesn’t take long for the concrete to delve into dirt and sand. The beach is, well, as what you’d expect any low-tier beach to be. Mostly depopulated, but there were still a few stragglers here and there, sure. The water didn’t look as bright blue or clear as most travel pamphlets would advertise, and the were bits of trash in the sand, bottles and plastic sticking out at odd angles and clearly visible even from a distance. Though, it was scarce and the sand still had a golden glow to it, the sunlight dipping lower into the sky was still bright and still very, very hot. No matter how weird or foamy the ocean looked, it was still a better fate to be wet and smelly than suffering in the sweltering heat.

Judging by the looks of the populace, some like-minded individuals agreed. Gaz kicks a seashell out of her way, and watches as Gir scrambles after it to stuff inside of his mouth. “Not saying I give a shit about your investigation data, but don’t you think there’s a few too many people here for a mermaid.” She says. “Aren’t they supposed to be secretive?”

“There’s not a lot of people here. And the spot where it might be is kinda hidden.” Dib refutes. “Plus, some sources say that they’re curious. They like to people watch, kinda like how humans like to watch birds or dolphins, you know?” They walk farther away from the main section of the beach, further in the sand and alongside the shore where the shore is rockier and the water is darker. Dib dully notes that the distance between the few vacation stragglers on the other side and them were growing farther and farther apart as they grew closer to the spot where they’d stake out. “We won’t be close to them anyway.”

A rocky cut off comes into view, blocking off a section of the beach that would normally be accessible. It’s not exactly a cliff side, but high enough it’ll take a little legwork to get over. Gaz groans at the sight of it and Dib is already dropping his bag to the ground, cupping his hands together and motioning his sister upwards. “C’mon. We’ll only be here for a little while.”

“You owe me money for being here.” Gaz steps into his palm and gripes for the rock’s edges. “I just want a tan, dude. I don’t really care about you guy’s fishing habits.”

A blur of green and a scuttling noise of metal against rock, Dib catches Zim using his Pak legs to climb up the boundaries easily, hiding them back inside his Pak with rapid speed. A quick glance around to see if anyone noticed (of course, no one did) and Zim grabs Gaz’s outstretched hand and hoists her up. Gaz disappears over the edge of what assumes to the a falter surface, and Dib waits below until Zim reappears. 

The alien, of course, takes the opportunity to look down upon him in the most theatrical way possible. A grin forms on his face, Zim leaning down and dangling an arm limply over the side of the wall. “Gaz-human! I’m fishing for Dibs.” The alien laughs loudly and obnoxiously. “Get it? Because I’m an alien?! He likes things that aren’t human, eh? Eh? I’m baiting for Dibs! I’m fishing for-”

A loud smack resounds from over the side of the rock wall the same moment Dib hooks hands with Zim, and Dib has to physically restrain himself from chuckling as the alien jolts from the pain. “Zim was JOKING. You were supposed to LAUGH!” He spies the grin on Dib’s face and gasps offense at it. “Quit your snickering. I can see that!”

Zim yanks him up and Dib makes a conscious effort to grin as wide as he can as he’s hoisted upwards, arm locked with Zim and meet his eyes. “Your jokes are horrible.”

“Zim is very funny.” The alien refutes, standing upright. He doesn’t let go of Dib’s hand. “I am hilarious.”

Dib cocks a brow, and another when he see’s no where for Gaz to be found. The top of the rock wall is flatter for a few feet before slumping down a small cliff side, one that he peers down and blinks at the sight of his sister and Gir waiting at the sandbank below. It’s a good fifteen, maybe twenty feet of a drop, so you can’t blame Dib for panicking for a split second when the hand still laced with his own rides up to lock around his arm, tugging him towards gravity and Zim all but perfectly slides down the cliff side, one Pak leg digging into the rock for stability, with Dib in tow.

Their feet touch the ground, Zim lets go and Dib goes barreling towards the sand face-first and faceplants. A thump noise, a mental check to make sure his glasses were okay, and a muffled voice through the grain. “Bastard.”

Zim chuckles as he picks himself up, patting the grain off his clothing and spitting out what little bit got into his mouth when Gaz speaks up. “ _This_ is the place?”

Dib spits off to the side and looks up. A wide area, enclosed by cliff side much like the kind they just climbed over, but cleaner from the rest of the beach where the regular populace resided. The sand was lighter and the water was darker, rocks jutting out of the water more often than not and waves leaving white foam trailing up alongside the shore. He could see where the water dipped deeper and ran through what appears to be a side cave far off, the drop between shoreline and what threatened to wash away into the vast ocean. A small, secluded piece of paradise, a perfect spot where a mermaid could visit without high risk of being seen.

Dib checks his phone for clarification and nods at the GPS. “Looks like it.”

“Cool. Don’t bother me.” And with that, Gaz is walking away most likely to claim her own little spot far away from the boys and honestly, Dib doesn’t know what else he expected.

* * *

Time passes by quickly and the sunset comes quicker in the hours than Dib anticipated, but he makes it work.

Gaz has her entire set up ready to enjoy her ‘solitude’, earbuds in and Game Slave on (situated far, far away from the water because god only knows what kind of wrath the world would face if anything happened to her console) and sits underneath the shade of an umbrella that Gir had pulled out of his head, (No, Dib doesn’t know how he was able to do that and Zim looked just as baffled as he did.) but overall, she wasn’t complaining anymore, and that was an improvement that Dib would bank on.

There’s an occasional momoment when Dib will look over and spy her phone buzzing, Gaz looking down at it with a frown, quickly grabbing it and typing out a reply before settling it back down with out so much of a second glance. He knows that look, and he knows her habits, and glancing at his own phone notifications tells Dib that Dad is much more likely to text Gaz for updates than his own son. For some reason that irks him, just the slightest, knowing that he trusts her more than Dib, but he’s not surprised, and if Gaz was good enough of a sister to send a half-ass selfie to lie that they were on a ‘vacation’ and not an investigation, he supposes he can handle her bickering.

Though, it feels kinda weird to have your Dad want to track your every movement when he himself hasn’t spoken to you in person in over a month. Something about a science convention in Brazil. Or London. Or some other hotspot he’ll fly off to without prior notice besides leaving a sticky note stuck to the fridge and a robot that fixes all their meals and still addresses them as if they were twelve.

(Graduation was soon. He wonders how much Gaz would hate him if he moved out immediately.)

Dib tries not to think about it. He was here with a purpose, he could worry about the woes at home later.

He finds a spot where the sand is the flattest and most solid, far enough from the water so nothing damaged his equipment as he ran back and forth from the water in a series of tests. Water samples, sand samples, the whole spiel. His suitcase fit inside of the bag perfectly, cushioned by his other clothing and extra items, and though it lugged on his spine when he had to carry it, it made preparing for data extraction a lot easier. His laptop opened up inside the suitcase, papers and other folders spilling out that he had to carefully shove back inside lest he wanted to lose it in the wind.

Another item he kept; a small bag of stickied devices. Small enough to fit into the palm of his hand, black metal that felt light but Dib knew that they’d be secured under water. Blue lines run across the bomb-shaped devices (Dib had to repeatedly convince Gir that they were indeed NOT bombs and that the Sir-unit should NOT try to eat them) until they lead to a small, fingerprint button. A press of that, and the device should sink to the bottom of the ocean floor, or glue itself to whatever surface it pressed against underwater. He needed to place them in a grid as best as he could, and with the laptop tracking the data, he’ll know if it’s just a fish or something much bigger.

The sound of shuffling sand comes up and a shadow looms over Dib. “Suffering from heatstroke yet, Dib-stink?”

A little self-conscious at the sweat beading on his forehead, Dib wipes it off and looks up with a frown. “Yeah. Wanna go take a dip in the ocean with me to help cool off?”

Zim hisses at him, offense in his face but the alien settles down besides the human, brushing his hands off on his trunks and peering over his shoulder. From a distance, Dib can see the beginnings of what appears to be an abandoned sandcastle, and Gir was trying to dig a moat around it. “What is that you’re holding there. Looks like little, tiny pathetic bombs.” A claw pokes at the device, palming for it once it peaks his interest. “Give it to Zim.”

Dib stuffs the devices back into the netting bag used to hold them and promptly holds them out of reach. “Bug off. They’re gonna be used to track the mermaid’s movements once it gets out here.”

Zim’s face dulls, a sharp tooth pokes out in distaste and he retracts back into himself. “What if it’s not here?”

“It _is_ here.” Dib snaps back. “C’mon. You read the report, you know that they’re curious.” He digs for the same file as he speaks, holding it upwards for emphasis. “This is the perfect spot where they’d like to watch humans without being detected.”

Zim snatches the file out from his hand, flipping through the pages and snarling at the sentences under his breath. “Or they could be picking out a meal.”

Dib shoots him a glare. “That’s Sirens, not mermaids.”

“Zim sees no difference.”

“There is a difference, moron. I’m the paranormal expert here-”

“Paranormal _idiot_ is what you are! Look! Look at these feeble theories your kind have written about these creatures!” He waves the report around, rolled up and thwacking the human on the forehead with it, even going as far as to swipe the scythe hair piece that sticks up. “Weak! Foolish! You humans are so confident in your speculations that you cannot fathom that every single one of them could be wrong.”

Dib snatches the report out of the air, ignoring Zim’s protest and tries to straighten out the paper as he stands. It’s been horrible misused, little parts scratched out with the tip of his claw and some pieces of the pictures bent to a point where the details were almost unrecognizable. Zim has definitely been doing his studying. It’s almost useless now, but he could still roll it up and use it to thwack the alien if he wanted to. “Says the alien that doesn’t know everything about the planet he’s on. Every theory has some sort of truth to it.” He jabs a finger in place, pointing at bullets and shoving it into the Invader’s view.

Zim _laughs_ in his face. “Insolent-fool boy! You speak as if Zim hasn’t faced these creatures that you claim you know everything about and yet how many times have you theories been proven wrong?” Arrogance was heavy in his tone and mockery in his voice. Zim takes on a theatrical stance and Dib feels a headache already beginning to form. “What about your Zim theories, huh? Your pathetic alien ‘research’-which is just a Zim shrine, don’t lie to Zim-” He cuts Dib off as the human goes to defend himself. “What about that, stinky? Tell me! Which one of your theories turned out to be true about the ALMIGHTY ZIM?! Which one!?”

Dib opens his mouth and Zim holds up a single claw. “That you came up with all on your pitful self, and I didn’t have to tell you.”

Dib grinds his teeth, opens his mouth to answer before coming up short. He thinks for a long moment, a moment with a flaring heat in his face akin to embarrassment because the smugness in Zim’s grin grows with every second, until he can wrack his brain for something useful. “Well, it was common belief that aliens were green.” He pokes at the alien’s arm, and feels a thin layer of paste underneath his fingertip. “You’re _very_ green.”

Zim blows air at him. “Your brain is the size and consistency of a marshmallow.”

“I was honestly expecting you to say something worse.” Dib pulls back his hand and rubs his fingertips together. He can barely feel it, the thin residue that came back with his touch, but Zim doesn’t look or smell like he’s wearing glue.

Zim must have watched him long enough to catch onto his thoughts, because he speak up. “Your overlord has taken the necessary precautions to protect myself from the _filth_ that resides in your nasty Earth water.” He says, haughty in his voice though Dib watches him glance over at the ocean with a fleeting fear. “I haven’t tested it on sea water though. The salt content as well as the other pollutants just weren’t available for testing at the time, and I was only given a short notice to prepare.”

A small inkling of guilt. Dib looks away and pretends to watch the waves. Gir is surrounded by a multitude of several kinds of floaties, each of which sporting bright, floral colors, and partially inflated. He doesn’t bother to wonder where they came from as he watches the robot pull another flat plastic from the inside of his mouth and begin to blow up what looked like a bright pink tube float.

“Zim also made adjustments to the protections for his Pak, though this took less time thanks to _someone’s_ antics.” Zim spits out a sour last word and Dib knows he’s referencing him, so amber eyes dart back to the alien to find he holds a familiar smile and a bright look. Whatever Zim was trying to say, no matter how weirdly passive aggressive it was, he was just trying to show off.

The alien turns at an angle and Dib cranes his neck to see behind him. A Pak leg juts out just far enough for the opening of the Pak to reveal the insides, something that Dib would like to actually look into one day, except he notices a change. A thin, clear veil separates the inside of the Pak from the outside world, shimmering in the sunlight similar to something that Dib swears is familiar, but can’t exactly put his finger on it.

A cautious glance to the alien, (who’s looking at him with a prideful grin and pretty expectant) Dib reaches out very slowly, and as soft and careful as he can manage, and presses a finger to the edge of where the Pak entrance begins. His skin meets resistance that feels like thin jelly, though it’s strong and not even a proper amount of jabbing can break through the barrier. “Whoa.” Amber eyes light up in fascination. “It…It’s kinda like the force field you had around your Voot-”

His fingernail scrapes the edge and Zim flinches backwards, teeth bared instinctively and Dib holds up his palms in surrender. “Whoops.” A nervous chuckle. Zim glares at him and Dib coughs awkwardly to the side. “It’s…pretty cool. Whatever you did there.”

The Invader’s grimace softens, the Pak leg retreats back inside his back and he awaits for a reaction. “You have a habit of of sticking your grimy fingers in my Pak. This improvement wouldn’t have been a consideration if not for you and your-” Zim thinks for a moment, searching for the words. “…previous contaminations”

Amber eyes narrow at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Slugs, blood, demons-beasts, holy water-”

“Okay, okay, I get it! I don’t need a reminder.” Dib cuts him off, before coming back to point the file back at the alien’s face. “I didn’t cause the demon-part though, at least not directly.”

The paper is snatched from his grip and Dib is promptly smacked with it. “Hey, wha- Ow. Fucking-” He bats away the offending paper and huffs at the alien’s amused expression. “Alien scum.”

Zim sighs, dramatically and theatrically. “Oh, the things that Zim does for his human. And yet, what thanks do I receive? Scolded? For simply wanting to annihilate the pathetic inferior species that resides on this planet? Zim deserves recognition! I deserve great praise, and the loyalty of you sniveling worms beneath me.” He tuts in his sentence, shaking his head.“Ungrateful cretin.”

Dib’s face feels uncomfortably hot. “What did you call me?”

“Ungrateful cretin. Fix your flappy ear things.”

“Not that. The other thing.”

Zim hmms, tapping the paper against his chin. “Sniveling worm.”

Dib blinks, grabs the forgotten bag of tracker devices, and starts to stand. “Well this ‘worm’ is about to go swimming, so unless you can swim, stay here.” Maybe the water will cool off the heat in his face. It doesn’t feel like the sun is the only culprit at the moment, and if he’s lucky, Zim will account the redness in his skin to a sunburn. Assuming the alien even knew what that was. Purple contacts narrow at him as Dib closes his suitcase, removes his shirt and glasses and sets them aside. “I’ll be back.”

He gets two steps away before he’s nearly tripped by a leg. “Why? Going to use yourself as bait?” The Invader stands to his feet, marching with Dib as the pair approach the shore. Zim tosses the report over his shoulder and Dib inwardly groans as it practically flies away with the wind. “Zim will laugh if this fish-human steals you away and eats you.”

The bag is lightweight and easy to sling over his shoulder, but Dib is feeling particularly lazy and holds it by the stem, letting it drag in the sand behind him. “Shouldn’t be an issue considering I taste sad and ugly”

“They are not picky! They will feast on your skin, your bones and all your squishy, mushy-” Green claws fiddle together and he makes hand movements like he’s ripping something out of his own stomach. Er, at least the spot where his stomach would be if he had one, whatever he has. “ORGANS. Your GOOEY bits! Meaty parts like intestines and kidney and..And liver juices!”

“Uh huh.” Dib side steps a couple of sand castles that look pretty well made, and suspiciously looking like his own house. The shoreline is littered with fully inflated floaties but no Gir to be found.

“And you know how they get you, Dib? I do, because Zim reads! I studied this creature and it’s filthy, DISGUSTING habits! They use these tricks, these games to make you think, MANIPULATE your _punylittlefleshbrain_ into docility! _”_

Dib’s foot hits something in the sand and a squeak sounds out from his heel. Gir’s partially entombed head stares up at him with a thousand yard stare and Dib mummers a ‘sorry’ as he passes by. _“_ Zim, I _wrote_ the report. _”_

Zim flashes a haughty. “You think I would only read what your stupid mind would procure? There are others, Dib! Humans, like you, nosy, little _imbeciles_ but they have research and theories. _Stupid_ theories, but theories like you. And Zim has read all of them!”

Dib slows in his walk, almost to a near stop and gives Zim a baffled look. “You did actual research on your own?”

“They’ll steal your soul, Dib.” Zim’s voice takes on a haunting tone, with a sharp smile that glints white in the sunlight but Dib knows the teeth are stained a bloodier color. Still, he ignores the question. “They lure you in, with pretty magical words and songs and promises and falsities you humans are so keen on letting yourselves fall prey to.”

He’s just trying to scare him. It’s not going to work, for obvious reasons, but it’s still a little alarming when Zim gets closer to emphasize his point in story telling (or warning, whatever this may be) and a Dib freezes when a hand curls around his mid-section.

“They’ll seduce you and your pathetic worm brain, appease to all your whims and fantasies!” Zim brushes away the hairs sticking to Dib’s forehead, grin wide and clearly enjoying how nervously uncomfortable the human was becoming. “You are feeble and easy to appeal to, for as long as something is interesting enough to you, you’re practically _defenseless_ against them.”

It takes Dib two and half seconds for him to realize that not only was his face red as all ruby, but Zim is just blatantly mocking him. “Hey-”

Zim’s other hand grabs Dib’s shoulder in a show of theatrics and the alien all but dramatically swoons in a way that the investigator just knows he’s doing on purpose. “I read they can sing you to sleep underneath the water so you can’t rise for air! I also read that they can tear you apart while your still alive!” Zim chuckles low in his face, bringing him in closer if anything but to make the knot in Dib’s throat even tighter. “They just rip your limps off first so you can’t paddle back upwards!”

Dib would be lying if he didn’t say that Zim’s enthusiasm in the warnings wasn’t intimidating. “That’s just speculation-”

“And did you know that they can suffocate you, suck out the air from your pathetic meat lungs and eat your heart from your throat?” Zim cackles and his breathe hits Dib’s face. “The internet called it a Kiss of death! Which is _boring_ and NOT Invader worthy at all because all you do is-”

Dib reaches up and yanks the straw hat down over the Invader’s eyes with lightening speed, falling out of his grip as the alien stumbles back in surprise. Zim curses something vile in Irken and reaches to pry the hat off of his head, profanity growing louder and more angry as the edges of the hat catch in whatever ends Zim uses to keep his wig down and the alien screams out. “GIR! _GIR!_ HELP ME. I’ve been ATTACKED. I’m blinded!”

Gir pops out of the sand like a jackbox, only now there’s seashells stuffed inside the breasts of his binki, and salutes. “Yes, master!”

Zim scrambles blindly. “Get this infuriating thing off of me!”

Gir salutes once more, then proceeds to rocket into his master’s face and effectively throwing the two of them into a sand castle and burying them under the mountain of grain that explodes on impact.

Dib blinks at the screaming, flailing duo, lets his gaze travel upwards the beach and spies his sister with one earbud popped out, one eye open, and her eyebrows shooting high enough on her forehead that if it were to go any higher, they would be joining the clouds. Which probably meant she witnessed…whatever that was.

So Dib promptly turns and walks into the ocean.

Okay, so ignoring Zim’s weird behavior, and saving the questions of why, exactly, the Invader is suddenly so interested in this investigation’s creature to such a abnormal extent. (Normal for Dib, but totally not normal for Zim) Dib tries to return his focus back to the task at hand: swim out a good distance, place the tracking devices in their respective spots and simply wait to see if anything shows up. Simple in planning, a lot more complicated once his ankles hit the water and _oh boy_ is it really fucking cold.

It takes a moment of waddling and waiting for the goosebumps to subside for Dib to get out to shoulder level. Underneath his feet, he can feel where the ground drops off into deeper water. The waves were calm, and he doesn’t have to do much to keep his head above surface level. The tracking devices are lighter than they look but they don’t float, and Dib has to be careful when he swims not to throw himself off balance holding onto it.

He swims out far enough where the ground dips off and the waves barely receed back into the ocean, not close to the shore but just far enough where he won’t get swept out, and figures that this is as good of a starting point as any. With a final glance towards the beach, (The green blur that is Zim has apprently freed himself from his sandy prison and was currently trying to prevent Gir from swallowing a bottle he found) he digs out one device, takes a deep breath and dives down.

Salt water in your eyes _sucks,_ and it doesn’t help that a lack of glasses paired with the ocean’s filter basically made it near impossible to see. Nearly, just so, but Dib can make out shapes and darker forms in the water he knows are the rocky bits, the places safest to suction the devices and swims down to it. The current fights him but he makes it there, plastering the device blindly to the surface of the rocks and waiting for blip of a blue light to shine. A small, bright glowing dot breaks through his vision. Dib kicks upwards towards the surface.

He breaks through and exhales, inhales and lets his lungs relax. He only needed to rinse and repeat this a few more times. A glance towards the shore again. Zim is currently pacing literal circles around his sister, arms in motion and unassumingly ranting about something. Gaz doesn’t look too interested, and Dib doesn’t need perfect sight to see the irritation inching across her face as the alien raves on. Gir is running around where the floaties are.

Dib dives under the water again and repeats the process, kicking towards the bottom and finding a surface with his free palm that felt hard enough to suction the device. He sticks it, waits for the blue light, uses it to push himself upwards and returns to the surface, ignoring the slight ringing in his ears as he breaks through.

Gir is waiting for him on the surface, merely a few feet away and lounging in a bright pink and yellow floral floatie tube. “HI MARY!” He waves erratically, feet kicking and splashing as he paddles to Dib. “Whaaaaaat are you doing here?”

Dib huffs through his nose to blow out the water that ran up it. “Investigation stuff.”

“Ohhhhhhh I’M PLAYING LIFEGAURD!” The sir-unit’s face lights up, sputtering gibberish and kicking the water in exitment that Dib is almost afraid that he’s going rocket to the bottom of the ocean. Dib spares a glance towards the shore. Zim was laying face down on the sand besides his sister, probably punched, and Gaz looked pretty satisfied with the silence. Gir rolls around in the tube in a nature that is only natural for him. “Lifeguard….For the Nemo!”

Dib plucks another device out of the net. “Nemo is a fish though?”

Gir stares at him for a really long time. “Are you sure?”

“Dunno. Let me go check.” Dib dives again under the water.

Going under he hears something pop in his ears, but it didn’t feel physical. The ringing noise turns more into a chime, and Dib inwardly wonders how far the sea water would damage his ears. He finds another spot fairly easily, and this time doesn’t wait for the blue light to appear before kicking back upwards to the surface.

Zim is standing at the water’s edge once he breaks through, his shirt and sunhat laying over by Gaz. He’s too far away for Dib to hear him if he tried saying something, but his eyes are locked on the water. They dart from the sea line to Dib, once to Gir and back again. Dib can see his hands opening and closing, a nervous fidget in his palms. Zim shuffles on his feet and looks awkward.

Dib will ask about it when he gets back to the shore. Another device taken, (there were only two left in the net) and he dives under again.

There’s the noise again. It doesn’t sound like the muffle of water. It _feels_ like a vibration in his brain edging up to a melody, like binary hums. Dib makes it to the rocks and suctions the device, and pauses.

The water is a deeper blue and painted every shape and form a haze of cerulean. His eyes didn’t sting as much and the burn in his nose was unnoticeable. There is a noise. No, not a noise, a melody coming from somewhere that he can’t pinpoint. Sight wasn’t on his side and neither was the pull of the waves, and Dib was using a grip on a rock to keep himself downwards. Turning his head doesn’t find it’s caller, and there’s a taste foaming in his mouth that tongues him bitter and grainy.

Dib doesn’t realize he’s been under the water for this long, listening, until his lungs start to burn and humanity’s limits forces him to the surface.

He breaks through and takes a deep gulp of air, blinking out the droplets from his eyes and shaking his head. A polite cough interrupts his thoughts.

“I don’t like it when you’re down there.” Zim’s voice startles him. “You’re going somewhere Zim cannot follow.”

Dib sputters as he paddles back, glancing up in confusion. Zim is hovering above the water, Pak legs extended and each tip of the metal expanded out to grace the water’s surface, but doesn’t dip lower than that. It’s a fascinating sight, one that Dib’s brain cannot wrack the science to explain other than chalking it up to alien techniques, as Zim’s Pak legs do not break water tension, and keep all of his weight balanced in the middle. He looked like a water strider spider. It was weird and downright illogical, but nothing about Zim was ever easy to explain.

Zim shifts obviously uncomfortably in his position. Gir floats underneath his master, singing a lullaby as if to provide some semblance of comfort.

“Is that why you hate this investigation particularly?” Dib questions, turning to the side to spit out the taste in his mouth. He doesn’t miss the way that Zim wrinkles his face at it. Dib grins. “Scared that some fish will kill me before you get a chance to?”

It’s not a light hearted comment, but Dib see’s a razor smile inch on the corners of Zim’s mouth. “Stupid boy, Zim has simply come to see whether I should slice you up for the fishes myself.” There’s a uncanny playfulness in his threat. “I bet your fat head would bobble in the water once it’s detached. Like a ugly fishing thing. So full of air and no brain.”

Dib moves closer to where one of the legs lie over the water and nears his hand towards it. “Uh huh. What if I just-”

The Pak leg drifts away from him and Zim inches down close enough just to hiss a warning above his head. “I’ll gut you!”

“Tragic.” Dib’s tone is hardy, but the grin on his face never leaves. It was…nice to see Zim out of his element. Trying something new. Even if he was scared doing it. “I’m almost done, don’t worry.”

“I don’t worry.” Zim spits at him, but Dib merely hums in his throat before taking a big breath, gripping the device and diving under once more.

The noise is louder this time, but he’s trying to ignore it. Finding a spot that isn’t already covered by the range of the other devices was a little bit difficult, so Dib dives a little deeper this time, careful not to kick too much unless he gets tired. Sight is at a disadvantage, but his fingertips touch something solid and he doesn’t see a blue light, so Dib sticks it to whatever he can find that’s semi-flat enough and prepares to use it as a kick off back to the surface-

Something touches his back, tracing his spine and rising up his skin until it graced the back of his neck.

Goosebumps erupt and it’s not due to the cold. Dib, in a moment of pure panic and surprise, spins in the water, (a difficult, awkward action because it took a bit of flailing) and pushes the gasp that wanted to force it’s way up his throat back down to stare wide eyed at the newer presence.

White, glowing eyes shine back at him from the deeper blue, reflecting back onto his face and illuminating the features that this creature faired, scaled skin just barely noticeable though it looked so smooth, fin’s on the side of it’s head where ears usually belonged, the skin of it’s hand trailing up to edges of his jawline, fingers webbed and shimmering, a smile with bright white teeth that look too sharp to be human and oddly too inviting for prey. Touches cradle against Dib’s face and he feels himself float against it’s presence, a sound coming from it’s throat in a way that doesn’t move it’s mouth. It winds around his ears and travels through the water that makes his body feel out of place.

Dib’s first thought is Holy Shit. Dib’s second thought, however, is that this was _really fucking cool_.

A mermaid. A _real_ , fucking mermaid, and it was swimming right in front of him. He doesn’t care to know why or how or what brought the creature to him but he’s not complaining in the slightest. It was ethereal, stunning and years of fascination with the paranormal and myths only amplified the enchantment. A wide, grinning, giddy smile erupts on his face without the permission to allow it and Dib wishes he could speak to it, say anything, ask questions about it, all while it hums a melody through its throat for him to listen to, entrancing and lulling, but sharp in a way that feels like it’s pricking at his brain. Words don’t form like lyrics do but Dib doesn’t think about that.

The water is getting thicker and darker but Dib doesn’t think about that either.

It glows and it reminds him of the bio-luminescent jellyfish he learned about in high school. Bright white that stuns out in the dark of the sea, and it reminds him of stars in the sky, and for some reason, that makes him think of space, and the ship, and of familiar faces and supernovas but a slight sting breaks through the thoughts as if the melody itself was purging the very memories from his brain. So Dib can just float giddy and excited as the creature smiles at him, gentle and interesting, cupping his cheek and leaning it’s face in-

A red, harsher light dots through the sea and contrasts with the white. Dib’s gaze breaks and it falls to a shape of green, wide eyes and the glow of a Pak . The creature pulls back almost in shock, meeting eyes with the same figure. Dib cannot read Zim’s expression from this distance.

Of course, pushing aside the realization that Zim was underwater, Dib excitedly points to the mermaid with a wide grin, because _look! It’s a mermaid!_

Suddenly, the white glow is gone and the creature darts away as quick as lighting, and it’s not until it’s hand leaves Dib’s skin does he feel his lungs _burning_.

Fantasy turns to horror in a split second and salt water fills Dib’s mouth, down his throat and up his nose faster than he can process what just happened and the ache, oh the ache in his chest constricting, suffocating him. The sea is darker, deeper where the sunset can not illuminate and Dib claws for the surface, out of reach until something else claws for him, wrapping around his mid-section (and it makes the feeling of his chest imploding in on itself so much worse) and dragging him against the water.

Cold air hits him like a train and his lungs realize he’s above water before his mind does and Dib spits out a mouthful, coughing up what was left in the back of his throat and taking in deep, deep gulps of air. The world turns like a roller coaster and it’s another second of being dragged through the water before his body is practically thrown to the shore. His eyes are shut tight but his fingers curl into the divest in the sand, moist and underneath his fingernails. Dib blinks through the weariness and pants against stale air.

“You stupid fucking IDIOT!”

Well, shit.

Through hazy eyes, Zim is crawling back to dryer land, bits and pieces of his skin darker blotches than normal although not quite burning. The alien can’t swim, so DIb is a little confused as to why he’s alive, much-less the both of them, but a Pak leg curled around a pink and yellow tube floatie retracts back inside of the Invader’s Pak and the scene is a bit clearer now. Clear enough that he can see the pure anger on Zim’s face, lips pulled back to bare teeth and a eyes burning holes into Dib’s body.

“Stupid worm-boy! I told you! I told you but does anyone listen to Zim? Do they?” He yells, scrambling to his feet and taking no account for the fact that Dib has barely gotten his breath back. “Why are you so careless?!”

There’s a certain tone that Zim makes Dib want to reflect his anger, maybe because of pride, arrogance, the investigator glares back up at him and tries to stand. “I had everything under control.”

“You took too long!”

“What are you, my fucking keeper?” Dib spits, literally, in Zim’s direction to get the rest of the salty taste out of his mouth. Breathes heavy, and harder with the rage. “I knew what I was doing! I was fine, I was perfectly fine! That was probably a once in a life-time chance to ever be so close to them and you _ruined_ It!”

Zim shoves him, and Dib’s weaker legs stumble back. “I saved your pathetic, worthless life!”

“If I’m so fucking worthless then why are you-!” Zim cuts him off, grabbing Dib by the shoulder and Dib shoves back, harder, and the two tumble to the sand. He crawls up apron the alien, pining him and using his knee to try and hold down one arm. One fist curls up in a familiar motion and he aims for green. “Why do you-.” A punch thrown, missed and hits the sand besides the alien’s head. “Keep _doing this_?”

Another punch, Zim block it and Dib is quick to yank out of his grip. “All you ever fucking do is contradict yourself!” He dodges when Zim tries to unpin him, unable to throw Dib off, and a spot of blood dropping onto the Invader’s face. “One second you hate me and want me to die and the next it’s like we’re best fucking friends-!”

Zim screams at him. He sounds angry, panicked almost. There’s a crack in his voice. “Shut up! _Shut up_!”

Fighting comes naturally and Dib dare say it; welcome after not having a real battle after so long. Their roots never disappear but something is a little different when he aims again and Zim catches his fist, yanks his arm outwards and Dib is forcibly on his back. The wind is knocked out of him for a second time and a sharp pain on his elbow where the Invader pins him with his knee. Sand digs into his shoulders as Dib grips for a hold, his fingers curl into the Invader’s wig deep, finding the antennae hidden under the hair and yanking until Zim snaps at his wrist.

Dib’s second hand is pined to the side of his head and he glares at Zim with fury unmatched. “What the _fuck_ is your fucking deal?! You don’t make sense!”

Zim hisses like venom in his face. “You know of _nothing!_ ”

“Hit me back.” Dib pants, glaring. “You don’t even hit me back any more.”

Zim freezes. There’s still rage in his face, twisted and sewing lines into his expression. His wig is disheveled and an antenna is partially sticking out. Through the low light of the dusk, Dib can see the red beneath the contacts, the glint of his teeth as they grit together in silence. Zim glares at him, long enough in quiet for Dib to hear the approaching footsteps and the feeling of something wet running down his cheek onto the sand. Whatever it was, Zim’s gaze flickers to it, and he tenses.

A muscle in his face twitches. “Zim will do much worse.”

Something bright and pink flies through the air and Zim is uncerousmounly knocked off of him with a ‘oof’ as he’s smacked to the side by a floatie.

Gaz stands over the both of them, face twisted in displeasure and holding the tube up in a threatening manner. “I didn’t come here to watch a thirty five part soup opera.”

Dib sits up, pushing the wet hair piece that’s flopped over into his eyes and points at Zim in accusation. “He started it-”

Zim scrambles upwards in the sand to glare daggers at him. “WRONG. The stink-boy is the cause of all this. Zim did nothing wrong-”

The tube hits him again, thunking off his head and tossing off his wig. Zim groans something incomprehensible and Gir waddles up to him cooing at his misfortune. Gaz watches the robot take a sea shell out of his top bikini, pat it on the alien’s forehead like a bandaid before directing her fury down to her brother. “I don’t care who did or said what. Both of you are getting on my nerves.” She sends a sideways glance to Zim at this. “Either kissup or kill each other in the next five minutes because the sun is setting and we’re not staying here.”

Dib’s mouth thins into a line. As much as he wanted to keep fighting Zim, his sister had a point. “Fine. Let’s just….get out of here and find a place to stay the night.”

“Good. I’m getting my own room, so pay for two.” Gaz is demanding and irritated, but Dib doesn’t even try to argue anything back because he knows it would be pointless. Even as stand, walking over to collect his things, he hears her remark as his back his turned. “By the way, Zim is right. You’re careless, Dib.”

Maybe it’s pride, maybe something else, but there’s a sting to his ego when his sister takes the genocidal alien’s side instead of his own. ‘Friends’ or not. He can hear Zim cackle lowly from the sand.

He sighs, dragging a hand down his face and wincing when a pain stings his lip. Pulling his hand back, there’s a dabble of watered down blood on his palm. A cut on his lip that he doesn’t remember forming. Dib stares at it for a long second, pretends he doesn’t see Zim staring at the same spot, before wiping his mouth and turning to collect his things.

* * *

The ride to the motel is deathly silent, aside from Gir’s singing, which even that was kept to a low volume as if the robot himself felt the tension in the car. Gaz kept to herself, focused on the Game Slave that never leaves her hand. Dib focuses on tuning out the beeps and the sir-unit’s song, never looking away from the road and clutching the steering wheel tight enough at points that his knuckles turn white. He doesn't look at Zim, and there’s kicking on the back of his seat for attention, but a itching, burning feeling of the alien’s glare boring holes into the back of his neck.

The transaction with the receptionist is quick. It’s a older man with a scruffy beard that gives the three of them a warm smile when they enter, but Dib can tell he becomes increasingly unnerved by the curt, dismissive attitudes they all have, and gives a funny look when he spies Gir (still wearing a pink bikini) held tight under Zim’s arm and calmly tells Dib that there’s an extra fee for dogs.

They get their keys, head up the stairs to their rooms, respectively side by side, and Dib is not surprised in the least when Zim brushes past him with no more than a sneer into Gaz’s room. His sister looks annoyed, but lets him through, and Dib and her share fleeting glances of a specific kind of look. You know, that kind of look you send your sibling of telepathically displaying your emotions without so much as moving a muscle in your face? That one.

Dib shuts the door behind him, makes doubly sure to lock it, throws his bag onto the bed and screams into the pillow.

It’s increasingly frustrating and confusing how much of a switch up was being, and all it was making Dib look like was an idiot. Hates water, hates the ocean and the investigation from the start, doesn’t even want to come then suddenly changes his mind and studies up on the creature for several hours to the point where Zim would dare compete with Dib about paranormal knowledge over it. Dib; the paranormal fanatic, obsessive over mythological creatures since he was nine and this alien had the audacity to pretend that he knew more about than he did? Just because he had a walking computer on his back?

The worst part of it all was that Zim turned out to be right, and there would be no way in hell would Dib let him have that satisfaction.

He’s a miserable, freakish, alien Invader solider who’s actions contradict what he says. He’s stupid and evil and sometimes funny and preferable company (Dib buries his head further into the pillow) but he’s a lying, scheming bastard and Dib honestly doesn’t know what to expect at the end of this weird…friendship they had. It’s not definable, not by usual terms, and he’s okay with that. But it’s unpredictable.

 _Zim_ is unpredictable. Weird and oddly possessive of Earth and it’s inhabitants but he hasn’t made any attempt to destroy it lately. Sure there’s been fights, schemes and battles here and there, but nothing putting the planet at stake. They were routine, enjoyable even, because five minutes after Zim is telling him he’s going to rip out Dib’s internal organs one by one is the alien crawling into his bedroom with a blockbuster movie in his hands demanding Dib to teach him how to put subtitles on and the two of them watching some B-class movie until the wee hours of the morning.

Dib has just gotten so comfortable with being friends with him, between the adventures and the horrible things they’ve gone through together, he almost forgot Zim plans on killing him to take over the planet one day. It’s not a surprising realization, but it’s one that makes Dib feel so much more exhausted.

A beep breaks his inner monologue and Dib groans as his sits up, dragging a hand down his face and groping blinding across the sheets for his phone. A text message displays across the home screen.

Gaz’s icon pops up. ‘ _Are you okay’?_

Dib doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just sends the skull emoji.

The response is quick. ‘ _Guessed not’._

He sets the phone to the side and opens up his bag, suitcase in tow and powers on his laptop. If anything, he can distract himself by seeing if he can gather any data from the trackers. There’s no telling where the creature went after it disappeared, or even if it came back often that whole fiasco. It was a bit disheartening, especially since he still didn’t have any actual evidence to provide to Swollen Eyeball just yet. As good as eyewitnesses were, Dib’s job reputation was already on a thin line.

He glances over to his phone. Three little dots appear that Gaz is typing, then disappear. He can hear faint talking through the walls, but it’s too quiet for him to actually make something out of it. Dib thumbs a quick message. ‘ _How’s Zim’?_

The reply is instant. _‘Weird’._

Dib squints at the screen. _‘Like normal weird or Zim weird’?_

The three dots appear, disappear, Dib hears a distance thump against the walls and what sounds like Gaz telling Gir to spit out something before receiving a reply. ‘ _He’s sitting here grumbling and being annoying, he won’t shut up_ ’. A pause. ‘ _He wants to talk to you_ ’.

Dib’s fingers hesitant. He kinda sorta, maybe just a little bit, wanted to talk to him too, but arrogance is a powerful thing, and he types back a response and tries to return to the laptop screen. _‘I’m not in the mood’._

A few minutes pass by, long enough for DIb to properly number the devices and secure the connection. He sends two email, reviews some photos and searches the forums to see if there’s any other description matching what he saw in the water earlier, when a beep breaks his concentration. _‘Too late. Already gave him the pep talk and everything. He’s your problem now’._

As if on cue, a soft knock on his motel room door. Dib turns the phone off and dutifully ignore it, even when a second knock comes, and a third (though this time a little harsher) all up until the doorknob begins to rattle. Dib ignores, eyes glued to the screen, hoping in the back of his mind that Zim will take the hint, get bored, bug off to annoy his sister or wreck havoc elsewhere-

_Crack._

Dib’s mouth thins into a knowing line. It takes a conscious effort not to look towards the screen, even the door creaks open, shuts closed, footsteps walk across carpet and the side of the bed creaks and bends underweight new weight. Fingers pause on the key bored, silence overtakes the dim room.

“I have to pay for that.” Dib sighs.

Zim speaks low when he responds. “I told you no security system would ever best Zim.”

“I don’t think a locked doorknob counts as a high tech security system.” Dib’s fingers fidget over the key bored. He wants to ignore him, not look in his direction and hell, even kick the alien out. But his throat is dry and there are thoughts swirling too quickly for him to manage that, so he says the next best thing. “I’m not apologizing.”

Zim huffs at him. “Fool boy. I’m not apologizing either. I’m here to remind you that you’re dumb and wrong.”

“Uh huh.” Dib leans back against the pillows and types out another email detailing a case about fairy sightings and missing lawn gnomes. Silence is broken by the click of the keys, and another weight presses against the pillows as well. A minute passes. He sends the email and keeps his eyes lowered. “Well? I’m waiting?”

A sound like claws clacking together. Zim was fidgeting with his hands. Dib doesn’t need to look to know that. “Zim is thinking.”

Dib switches windows and watches the tracking screen with mundane attention. “I can tell.”

“Silence, stinky.” The alien hisses, but there’s no venom in his tone. A few seconds of soft fidgeting, Dib feels a sense of a stare at his face, on his lip and hands, and subconsciously pokes at the small mark on his mouth. Quiet for a moment. “Why do you…Why are you so obsessed in these…things?” Zim waves a hand. “Creatures. Beasts of legend.”

“I like them.” Dib answers plainly. “I think they’re cool. I want to prove to people that they’re real.” When Zim doesn’t respond, Dib takes this as his cue to continue. “It’s just fascinating to know that theyre out there, existing on the same planet as me, and further. You knew how I was when we first met and I was-” He waves a hand dismissively. “Excited to see an alien.”

Zim huffs at him. “Obsessed.”

“Maybe a little obsessed. I was twelve. Give me a break.” Dib refutes. “Okay, here’s this; humans are boring and stupid, and _they’re_ not. Simple.” He looks up from the key bored. “Why do you ask?”

He knows that Zim’s hands are fidgety, but he does not expect to meet such an intense stare from the alien. Zim looks different in the dim lighting, more serious, quieter. Tongue in cheek like he’s debating on what he’s going to say before saying it, and a Zim that actually thinks before he speaks is a little scary. “Human’s aren’t boring.” It’s honestly the last thing Dib expected him to say. “They’re stupid, yes. Very, _very_ stupid, but not boring.”

Dib rolls his eyes and the alien narrows his own gaze at the motion. That, however, is not something Dib over analyzes. “Okay, alien. I don’t see what this has anything to do with-”

“You feel pain when you disinfect your wounds.” Zim cuts him off. “You poison yourself for recreational purposes.”

The investigator blinks at him. “That’s not…interesting things though-”

“You change color.” Zim interrupts him, stating the sentence as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Constantly, and due to the silliest of of things. Your biological bodies are so inferior that they turn blue when they don’t get enough oxygen. These ‘bruises’ can be yellow or blue or green or purple!” The way he speaks rises in tone, though his voice stays hushed. “And when you turn red it shows where are your blood is, in the face! For no reason other than to show that you are _feeling_!”

Dib pushes the laptop off of his lap watches the alien beside him ramble. “You are red when you angry. You are red when you are humiliated, red when you cry-” A shot of embarrassment runs through Dib at the mention and he tries to beat down the feeling as his alien rants. Unfortunately, his counterpart notices, and there’s almost a chuckle in Zim’s voice when he calls him out for it. “You DARE have the guts to say Zim doesn’t make sense when you don’t yourself?”

Zim raises a hand and cups Dib’s jaw and the investigator freezes, amber eyes darting to meet focused purple. Zim wears an amused grin. “ In all our battles, I hear your pathetic, puny pulse race and your face grow red with fury! But this?” He presses his claw gently into Dib’s cheek to prove his point. “This creates the same effect.”

Dib feels his hands twitch, and curls them into a fist. Zim just didn’t understand human boundaries. “What does this have to do with you acting paranoid now?” He snaps, though his voice doesn’t come out as harsh as he wants it to be. Still, Zim’s face slacks and the touch on his face falls. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

There is a flash of emotion on the Invader’s features, something of frustration mixed with fear, but the alien settles for a frown, hands in his lap. “Zim is trying to ‘communicate’ something to you and you are being an insufferable, miserable worm.”

“Make sense, then.”

Zim sputters something in frustrated Irken, picking at his wig akin to how a person would pull at their own hair when stressed out, except his claws dig past the hairs and tug at his own antenna in frustrating. “Your actions bother Zim.” He fumbles with his words. Dib squints at him. In a way, watching Zim trying to convey emotions properly was like watching a turtle lying on it’s back trying to flip itself over on his feet. “Your actions…your importance-”

Eventually, Zim gives up the formalities. “Zim has….I have done…things. Zim has gone through a GREAT mighty deal of trouble to keep you alive and I DEMAND you stop ruining my hard work!”

“…Does this have to do with what you wanted to tell me in the car?”

“No.” Zim speaks too quickly, then hesitates. His gaze avoids Dib’s, darting all over the room. “Yes. Not exactly. No. Not fully.”

It awkward and almost painful to watch, and guilt was already gnawing at Dib’s brain. So words accumulate and form in his mind, and Dib tries not to look directly at him when he speaks. “Thanks, by the way.” His voice wavers in the middle of talking and hopes that Zim doesn’t hear it. “For looking out for me. Even though I had it under control and you were really mean about it. But yeah,” He shrugs, swallowing the frog in his throat. “Thanks for saving me. You know. Again.”

Zim gives him a incredulous look.

The dark haired boy gives him light hearted smile, the kind with too many teeth and saved for playful mockery. “Friends again?”

(And if he was smart, Zim would take the hint and realize that Dib was giving him an ‘out’ from talking.)

(Dib figures he might as well make that a problem for a future Dib, not now.)

With the softest hint of malice, and a hint of amusement, he grins. A chuckle is in his voice when he speaks. “I’m going to kill you.”

Dib snorts. “You’re pretty shit at doing that.”

Zim goes to smack him with the pillow and Dib dodges just in time, leaning forwards for it to sail over his head and and hits the wall on the other side of the room. In a slight panic, Dib shields his laptop. “Whoa, whoa hey watch it! You break this and I’m taking back my vow on never dissecting you!”

The alien’s cackle cuts short with a wheeze (a thump resounds from the wall behind them, Gaz probably irritated with the noise) and Zim reaches forward to snag the laptop. “LIES. You made no such vow!”

Between the scrambling of the laptop and a short second where DIb feared the thing would be flung across the room and another victim to Zim’s destructive tendencies, a small sound emits from the speakers. Dib freezes, and in turn so does Zim, cocking an hairless eyebrow at the human’s behavior as the snatches the laptop, pulls it close and switches through tabs until he finds what he’s looking for.

On the tracker screen, between the lines of blue and green there is a shape. Detected far enough from the shore line that it was still in deep water, but well within swimming distance, maybe not far from where Dib had the ‘encounter’ (Calling it anything else just sent different variables in his mind that he doesn’t want to think about) and lingering there.

With a curious Zim peering over his shoulder, amber eyes watch as the shape moves, closer to the shore, closer and then outwards to the side, moving quickly and naturally as it disappears behind a formation that was supposedly just supposed to be rock and coral. Dib searches the area to follow it but comes up short. Those devices can only track for so long and at a certain distance.

Alarm raises when the trackers positions begin to move. Plucked off one by one, to the same spot until Dib had several different trackers pointing him to the same coordinates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha yall really thought they was gonna have a heart-to-heart at the end there didnja ya. lmao theyre not bleeding or crying yet so not yet. ;)


	3. Charmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their initial encounter with the Siren, Dib and Zim follow the trail to lead to yet another unforgiving experience. This time, Dib is charmed and Zim is out of his environment. Stupid decisions are made, vulnerable things are revealed. Idiots are pining and are too stupid to talk about it. Also, someone might die, but that's not new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this and then running away. NOT Beta-read. If you see a mistake, don't look at me, I am running.
> 
> Also, I've been warning of ZaDr development in the previous chapters, and while I don't feel like it's too heavy in this one (at least not far past much as I've done before) be aware that there's a particular moment or two that is definitely written to have ZaDr in mind.
> 
> Notes: Read the tags. Chapter contains violence, drowning, blood, and also the mindcontrol(?) of a character.

“No. _No_. Absolutely not. Denied. ZIM FORBIDS IT!”

Dib is already scrambling out of the bed, knocking over the protesting alien (Zim yelps as he falls off the bed onto the floor) and snags his shoes, working to throw them on as quickly as he can, one eye on the task and the other watching the laptop screen. The blue dots of the trackers have stopped in one place, unmoving and blinking there. “I can’t just ignore that! That HAS to be the mermaid!”

Zim’s head pops up from the other side of the bed. “WHO CARES!”

Dib ignores his outbursts. “It moved the trackers, Zim. Like it’s intelligent enough to know that I put them there _and_ that I watch them. It wants me to meet it. It HAS to.” Excitement bubbles up in him, as well as an inkling of fear, but that’s a natural feeling that Dib has hidden and beat down for years now in the face of paranormal science. Dib slips on his shoes and reaches for his phone, connecting the link in GPS between the laptop as Zim continues to groan in the background. “Do you know how cool this is? To have a creature like that WANT to talk to us? I mean, that’s totally what it’s trying to do. Talk to us, I mean-”

Zim looks frustrated enough to start tearing marks down the side of the comforter with his claws. “It is a FISH that will CONSUME your SOUL, Dib!”

“It’s NOT going to consume my soul.” Dib snaps back, shutting the laptop closed. Zim snarls at him when he unzips his bag, digging through to search for their adventure camera. He finds it stuffed between the underwear and the travel sized shampoo bottle. “Don’t you get it? If I can meet up with it, I can get evidence. A picture, a recording, anything for Swollen Eyeball and they would lose their collective minds if I didn’t take this opportunity!”

Dib’s rambling cuts off when the weight in his hand disappears, a snatches the strap of the camera and swipes it out of this reach. Zim curls his lips up at him in annoyance, Pak leg holding the hostage device high up towards the ceiling. “You are SEDUCED by that creature! BRAINWASHED!”

If there was any way that Dib could have rolled his eyes any harder, he would have. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I do not KID you, Zim has no SMEETS.” The alien points a finger of accusation at the human, the Pak leg retreating back inside the Pak and taking the camera with it. Dib can hear the clank of metal as Zim somehow manages to fit the camera inside his back before shutting it away where he can’t steal it back. “You are hypnotized! Compromised by your brain’s weakness! It has taken a hold of you, Dib! Luring you back so it can feast! It casts some magic spell on you to feast on your pathetic, disgusting meat body!”

Zim spits when he yells. Dib deadpans at him. “This is a part of the job, Zim. We still haven’t gotten what we came here for. We need evidence.”

“Tell them your eye-witness testimony is enough.”

Dib shakes his head, fingers curled tighter around his phone. “Anyone can give an eye-witness account, it’s not impossible to just make one up on the spot. They’re not credible. At least, not as much as a photo.” His keys lay on the end table on the side of the bed Zim sits at, in plain view but the alien hasn’t noticed nor thought to grab them just yet. A plan hatches in Dib’s brain. “It’s not like I’ll be in any danger.”

Zim cuts him off with a noise that sounds like a mixture of a scoff and a laugh, loud and abrasive until he cuts mid-laugh to glare at Dib like he was looking at the most stupid creature in the universe. (and knowing Zim, he was probably thinking that.) “Have you learned NOTHING?”

“I’ll be fine.” Dib readies himself, ignoring the thump of something hitting the motel’s walls on the other side. Gaz must of heard their arguing, but it’s routine, she’s not going to check as long as they quiet down, and if Dib can make a break for his truck, she’ll never know. The only issue is getting past the Invader.

Sure, they did just make-up from a fight from Dib _maybe_ being reckless in his pursuit of getting paranormal evidence, but that’s all water under the bridge. Back of his mind. The mermaid’s face and song lingers in his Dib’s ears and he doesn’t know why the overwhelming urge to seek it out is present, it can’t be any different from all the other times he’s sought out danger and other wordily creatures. Was it a little scary? Oh, terrifying. But Zim didn’t understand, this is what _thrilled_ Dib, and he needed to find it again. He wasn’t charmed. It was his nature. It’s always been his nature.

An all too familiar nature to Zim, because the alien has the same look of distaste on his face as they once did all those years ago when Dib hunted him down for the sake of paranormal research and fantastical recognition.

“The entire point of this trip was to get a picture of that thing. You can either stay here, or you can come with me.” He lightens his voice in hopefulness, light-hearted though Zim snarls at his purposeful. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

Zim snarks at him. “Only on the condition that we kill it.”

“We’re not gonna kill it, we just need-”

“A corpse is pretty good evidence to me.”

A frown flattens on Dib’s face and Zim returns the gesture with a cocked, hairless eyebrow. Dib blows air out of his nose. “You really don’t want me to go, do you?”

Zim wrinkles his face and gimmicks Dib’s tone. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

Dib’s hand finds a flashlight in his bag, curls his fingers around it and gives the Invader a cheeky grin. “Nope.”

As quick as he can manage, Dib lunges over the bed, grabbing a pillow with his freehand and slamming in into the alien’s face (Zim’s yell is cut off, smothered by feathers and cheap pillowcasing) and kicks him to the floor. Zim is unceremoniously knocked down, muffled angry sputtering as he tries to scramble upwards from the carpet but Dib has already snatched his keys from the end table, phone and flashlight in hand and bolts out the door.

He doesn’t bother to shut or lock it as he runs across the balcony, down the stairs and all but dives into his truck with an adrenaline that feels routine and yet welcome. “Sorry, Zim!” He shouts, not caring whether or not the alien can actually hear him before buckling in with the fastest speed a human can manage, and turning the key in the ignition. “I’ll make it up to you later!”

Dib gets three, maybe four seconds of tires screeching continuously as he peels out of the parking space, uncaring to the rest of the sleeping inhabitants in the surrounding motel rooms, (Forget trying to be silent, Gaz is probably gaming with her headset on oblivious anyway) and speeds out of the parking lot with hardly any hesitance before he glances in the rear view mirror. An angry green shape stumbles out of the motel room. Dib can feel the heat of Zim’s glare even as he drives off, (no contacts, Dib may have accidentally knocked them out, oops) the alien watching the truck disappear into the night until the headlights no longer appeared on the horizon.

It wasn’t Dib’s most graceful exit, but it got him back on the mission again.

Leaning back on into the driver’s seat, he takes a deep breath. As much as he wanted Zim not to worry, he didn’t need a keeper, and he wasn’t going to throw away the one reason why they came onto the trip on the first place just because the alien decided he didn’t like it. Call it stubbornness or hurt pride, but he needed something to show Swollen Eyeball, and if not that, prove to himself. All of the other mishaps were coincidences, his sister and Zim didn’t understand it. (A tiny voice in the back of his head says otherwise, but Dib beats that down with a metaphorical stick and covers it up with over-enthusiasm.)

He’s only armed with a phone with half battery and a flashlight that probably had less, but he’ll have to make it work. Dib didn’t have the camera, unfortunately thanks to Zim’s antics, but a snap from his phone would work good enough, that is, if he can get close enough. He _should_ get close enough. He doesn’t know how or why he should risk it, but the risk doesn’t seem high, and it doesn’t feel scary. At least, not in the way it should. Not in the way that doesn’t thrill.

There’s an an odd intuition tingling in his brain. Dib checks the mirrors and looks out onto the road. No cars, no pedestrians given the scarcity of the population. A spare neon light from a store coupled with the streetlights don’t exactly illuminate the way, but the truck’s headlights work well enough. Nothing out of the ordinary. He can afford to get lost in his thoughts since traffic is practically non-existent.

Excuses come easier than normal when the thought of seeing the mermaid again crosses his mind and it’s almost enough to make Dib wonder if Zim’s little remark was right. But that’d be admitting the alien had a better knack for paranormal habits than he did, so of course that’s not true.

There’s no other cars in sight, but Dib still comes to a halt at a red-light out of habit. He pulls his phone up, glancing down as he waits. His laptop and phone were linked, and the signals from the trackers could be followed from there. Double checking shows they haven’t moved, at least not from the place where they’ve been stolen. The dots blink in unison, appearing to be within a formation on the map that’s just supposed to be rock and cliff side.

Dib bites the inside of his cheek and turns back to the road. He doesn’t know what to expect going out to the beach again, though the uncertainty doesn’t bother him. The previous ‘encounter’ weighs on his mind, and he thinks about what might have happened if he hadn’t been pulled from the water. Thoughts of blue and white, blurry memories that…feel fuzzier than he thought. Clouded. The feeling of a sting is still lingering on his lip-

A hard, heavy impact _slams_ onto the roof of the truck and jerks Dib back to awareness as the vehicle violently shakes, rocking side to side. A small dent blunts through the metal on the inner rooftop, barely gracing the thin strands of his hair and Dib can’t help but tense in fear at the sound of metal sparking against metal. “What the _fuck_!?”

It’s dark, and nothing shows his headlights except the intersection’s now green light. The vehicle slows it’s rock to a halt. Dib holds his breath as he watches through the windows, long, spindly shapes coming off the top of his truck and surrounding the car until a weight moves itself lower to sit hunched over on the hood, metal creaking as the figure shifts and glares daggers into Dib until realization settles in and he finally breathes out in annoyed relief.

Normally, bright red eyes staring back at you from the darkness is a scene ripped straight out of a horror movie, but the whole terror effect is dampened when the villain in question is wearing a tacky Hawaiian shirt and knocking on your windshield looking akin to a disgruntled cat that’s been locked out it’s house.

Zim scratches at the glass if only to just make DIb sigh at the marks left behind. His voice is low, but can still be heard. “Must you be so impossible to your _partner_ , Dib?”

Dib’s mouth thins into a line before making sure to mouth the word as clear as possible. “….Alien freak.”

Zim’s frown deepens, dragging a claw along the metal just to spite him.

The alien doesn’t have to say anything else, his actions make it clear enough for Dib to understand, and the human rolls down the passenger side window and watches as the Invader crawls along the windshield to the side, swinging in through the opening and stowing his Pak legs away as he lands in the seat. They clack against the opening as they retract back inside the Pak and Dib runs a hand down his face, trying not to think about the cost of the damages. “You are the moodiest lizard I’ve ever met.”

Zim does not even attempt to put on his seat belt and Dib briefly thinks about strapping him in himself if only just to get a little bit of revenge back at the alien. He slumps slightly in his seat as Dib presses the gas, and accelerates a little too quickly for his own liking. Zim is watching him with an less-than-please expression, arms crossed and looking akin to a toddler . “Idiot boy. You are the reason for Zim’s stress.”

A mocking grin stretches on Dib’s face before he can stop it. “Aw, worried about me?”

“…Unfortunately.” Zim grumbles. A pause, Dib can feel him still glaring at him from out of the corner of his eye. “You make it hard not to be.”

Well. That was not quite the honest answer Dib was expecting. Insults and mockery are so routine the occasional sincerity feels odd and out of place, even if he already knew the answer. Hands tightening against the steering wheel, he inwardly sighs when the dashboard begins to beep and awkwardly slaps the space to his right until Zim has enough mercy to click in the seat belt.

* * *

Fortunately for them, the beach is vacant as expected. Anyone with a sensible sleep schedule would be fast asleep in a comfortable bed somewhere. Still, it was surprising to find the beach empty even far from their destination, you’d think there would be at least one or two stragglers, maybe a couple that wanted a private walk on the shoreline, but it’s just empty and quiet save for the waves. It was pitch black outside. What moonlight that reflected off of the ocean did very little to keep Dib from stumbling over himself when his foot trips over trash left in the sand.

Metal hooks around his mid-section before he face plants and while it prevents him from eating shit, still knocks the wind out of him as Zim pulls him back up with a Pak leg and shakes his head, tutting at him. “Where would you be without Zim?”

Dib rights himself on his feet, pushes the offending leg away and shines his flashlight in the Invader’s face harsh enough to make him hiss. “Somewhere where I didn’t have a constant headache following me around.” He jests. The Pak leg rises as Zim scoffs at his retort, the end of the metal contorting until it framed a light of it’s own. The Pak light brightens and Zim makes a point to shine it directly into Dib’s glasses until the human swats it away.

The walk is quiet, for the most part. Dib’s phone keeps track of the trackers, their location haven’t yet changed. From the way it was looking, it was past the point of secluded beach they originally sat at. The display flickers ever so slightly and Dib watches intently, aware of the glances Zim sends the screen, to see if there’s any change. With the combination of both of their lights, it wasn’t too hard to see where he was going, but he still manages to stub his toe on a rock here and there.

Zim is constantly fidgeting, Dib’s own breathing can get a little annoying when his nose whistles, and their footsteps sink into the sand with a soft crushing sound. Aside from that, it’s quiet, and easy to let that fall into background noise.. The waves hitting the shoreline is the only thing he can’t tune out. There is a soft sound. A subtle ring, a hum, that echoes just barely in the space between where the water recedes and comes falling back onto the sand.

“What exactly do you expect to see when we get there?” Zim speaks. Dib blinks, back to reality and turns to Zim. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, Paklight trained on the water rather than whats in front of him. “Do you have any semblance of a plan?”

Dib spares a glance over his shoulder and dully notes the expectant look on the Irken’s face. “Find the mermaid. Get a picture, recording, anything.” He waves his phone in the air. The GPS was beginning to flicker again, and he wasn’t sure if that had to do with the horrible signal or his battery percentage lying to him.“ Send it to Swollen Eyeball.”

Zim’s gaze trails back to Dib with a frown. “So in other words, you don’t have a plan.”

Dib kicks sand up with his heel just so the alien can gasp at the offending action to his leg. “Well, its not like I expected this to happen. I mean, I was going to get data on movement, that’s it.” He side steps pretty easily when Zim kicks a seashell at his ankles. “I didn’t expect it actually meet the thing, or that it wanted to see me again.”

“Eat you.” Zim interrupts.

“You don’t know that.” Dib huffs. He drums the phone against his hand. The screen was beginning to glitch out. As he fiddles with the device, he thinks of white hair. “It didn’t eat me the first time. It just…smiled at me. I thought it had a nice smile.”

“Nice? NICE?” Zim pulls at the skin on his face and it’s sight of it is actually kinda funny. “I know you lacked your optical enhancers but the creature is OBVIOUSLY predatory. No one has that many rows of teeth just to smile with, stupid Dib.” Zim curls his claws up to mimic a monstrosity. “Sharp, deadly rows of teeth, perfect for ripping fleshy morons limb to limb.”

Dib narrows his eyes. He doesn’t remember ever seeing such a thing. Deflecting, Dib raises a hand and prods at the corner of Zim’s mouth with a finger, and grinning when the alien recoils back. “You’re one to talk, shark face.”

“Do NOT compare me with the likes of your pathetic, earth fish!”

Dib lets the alien have his space, checking the GPS on the phone again once more for clarity. Out of habit he checks his notifications. Empty, he doesn’t know what he expected, and wonders how long it’ll be until his phone starts blowing up.

“Gaz is going to be super pissed at us.” Dib catches Zim’s attention, though he keeps his gaze elsewhere.It’s hard to tell in the low-light, but Zim is careful as he moves. There’s trash and rocks scattered about in the sand and the alien was still very obviously nervous to be this close to the water. “We left her with Gir.”

“Eh. She’ll be fine.” Zim waves a hand. “Gir has games in his head. I put them there so he’ll have something to do besides bothering me. And it also prevents him from putting muffins in there. Do you know how hard it is to clean muffin out from a Sir-unit’s circuitry? Do you?” A claw taps Zim’s temple to make a point. “He once put a cranberry one in there! Cranberry, Dib.”

Muffin discourse aside, Gaz was totally gonna kill them when they get back. If they get back, that is, a small voice says in the back of Dib’s head. A second thought arises, then a third, a fourth, clouded and hard to process, but it’s shaken away and replaced with a soft ringing in his ears. “She told me she gave you a pep talk.” A pause. A bit of mischief arises in Dib. “And a secret.”

Zim’s form goes tense with a sudden quickness, it was almost surreal. “SHE DID WHAT.”

There’s a weird feeling in his chest. A light, dizzy feeling that he can’t explain where it came from, but for some reason Zim’s panic brings a giggle out of Dib. Zim mustn't have liked that response, because his sputtering becomes frantic. “NONSENSE. Absolutely not. Zim needed none of this ‘peppy-talk’.” Two claws brought up to emphasis his point, he shoves them in Dib’s face just to make sure the human is watching. “The Gaz knows nothing! NOTHING! Zim was simply asking for her, er, _input_ on how to tell you that you how much an moron you were so your dumb meat brain could understand it.”

“Uh, huh.” Dib fights the mocking grin on his face and inwardly debates how far along he was going to take this. “Did she tell you to flirt with me?”

Dib’s not sure what sort of trance is overtaking him at the moment, but there is something inherently funny about hearing Zim over-dramatically gag in the dark that sends him in a fit of laughter. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding! There’s wasn’t a secret!”

Zim is still going. “REVOLTING.” Gag. “INCONCEIVABLE. ” Another gag. “DIE.”

If there was any way to describe the exasperation on Zim’s face that didn’t include comparing him to a pissed off frog, Dib couldn’t think of one. After a moment of theatrics that is surely enough for the Invader to get his point across, the Irken grumbles gibberish underneath his breath, clearly tired of this but Dib still had a little bit of humor left in him. The investigator jabs at the Irken on the shoulder with the phone, just a tap. “Stupid alien says what?”

“What?” Zim cocks a brow at him before sputtering in his realization. “ENOUGH OF THIS!”

He curses something incomprehensible, lashing out and snatching the malfunctioning device. “CURSE YOU. This investigation is taking far too long with your presence and your stupid, primitive technology!” A second tendril comes from the Pak, and Dib feels alarm break through the trance and goes to snatch his phone back only for the cord to hook itself into the charging port. “Zim has a MUCH better GPS unit, better than your pitiful device.” The Irken brags, phone held out from Dib’s reach. “I will simply download the navigation and we’ll get there much faster. You’re welcome.”

Dib stares at the place where the cord connects to his phone, briefly wonders if the Pak was compatible with everything, (along with a spare thought that this may be how Zim was able download the pictures from his own camera without Dib sending them to him, but he wasn’t in the mood to confront him about something the alien would no doubt try to deny.) Dib opens his mouth to protest, but the words die as the phone beeps, is sucked into the bowels of Zim’s Pak and said Irken is standing there looking quite proud of himself.

“Wow.” Sarcasm coats Dib’s tone (through it sounds so lighthearted when he speaks) and he shines the light into Zim’s face. “You wanna eat my flashlight too?”

As if the universe wanted to spite him on cue, the flashlight flickers once, twice, before fizzling out.

Dib blinks, the two staring at the sudden dead weight in his hand. For some reason alarm doesn’t rise as easily as it should have but out of habit he knocks it into his palm, knocking it and furrowing his brows when it doesn’t flicker back to life. “The hell?” He hits hard again for good measure and checks the batteries inside. They should have been brand new. “It’s…not turning back on?”

Zim’s laughter grates his ears. “HA! Stupid, earth technology. So reliant on external power! You’re lucky Zim is here to-”

 _Bzzt_. Pitch blackness shrouds them both. Dib can see the slight glow of Zim’s eyes, blinking in surprise, and looking upwards towards where the Paklight might be, now obviously broken. “Eh _._ ”

Part of Dib wants to laugh about it, the other part wants to pull out his hair in frustration because every trip and turn, there’s always nothing factor going wrong. “Well, shit.” He curses, and his tone comes out lighter than he thought it would. “There goes the mission.”

“Mission? What does this have to do with the mission? This is hardly a hindrance!” He can’t see Zim in the dark, but the alien is still as loud as he’ll ever be.

Dib deadpan stares at Zim. Or At least where the slight glow of his eyes were. They blink, the air moves rapidly in front of his face, and the alien lets out a thoughtful sound. “Oh, right. Zim forgot you had biological inferiority.”

Resisting a sigh, Dib weighs the dead flashlight in his hands. He thumbs his fingers around the handle, senses of touch felt weird in the dark. He wouldn’t go as far to say he was afraid, (human nature begs to differ, and not being able to tell what was around you was always a first step to the end of his nightmares) but the waves are a little bit louder. It’s that weird feeling, when you’re body pays attention more to sounds and smells now that he was essentially blind.

The salt of the ocean smells bitter. The ringing in his ears has fallen into something more rhythmical.

This was dumb. This was dumb, stupid, and really unfair. “You wouldn’t happen to have any fancy, alien technology in your Pak that would help us out, would you?”

There’s a pause in the air before Zim answers. “Even if I did, whatever is affecting our tools would probably affect that as well.” Another pause. “Zim’s Pak is fine, I think.”

If Dib remembers correctly (and he hopes that he does, considering his memory was beginning to shift into other things, other blurs and clouds that aren’t coherent enough for him to attach to) then the reports mentioned anomalies happening out on far sea water. Ship’s GPS signals falling flat. Electric engines suddenly malfunctioning and stranding boats at sea. Radios cutting out never to be heard from again. All usually within the presence of something mythical.

Considering the lack of questions, Zim probably already read that part of the report three times over.

Opening his mouth to purpose some sort of solution cuts short when Dib is suddenly yanked forwards, the flashlight falling from his grip into the dark sand somewhere. His feet move for him and Dib realizes with semi-shocked clarity, that he’s staring at the pink glowing dots of a Pak and the capture has three claws intertwined with his own fingers. It wasn’t delicate, more like Zim was gripping his hand like one would a leash rather than flesh, but the heat floods into Dib’s face anyway. “What ARE you doing?”

Zim glances over his shoulder and fake contacts squint at Dib. “Zim is leading the way, obviously.”

“Okay, but-” Dib fumbles with his words, nearly tripping over himself when he tries to pause and Zim keeps going. Irritation grows but it’s clouded by another feeling, the trance echoes in the back of his mind and makes him speak out his words poorly. “You can’t jut-we can’t…We can’t just hold hands-”

The Irken huffs at him. “Do you intend for Zim to wait around while you fumble about blindly?”

The ground underneath them gets rockier. Bright, pink dots of light emerge from Zim’s Pak, probably the joints of his Pak legs and Dib feels them come to a stop. A tug at his hand doesn’t provide freedom and he cringes at the increasing nervousness within him. How, exactly, does one tell their alien counterpart that walking on the beach at night hand-in-hand was probably the oldest, corniest romantic trope on the planet. “It’s weird. You would’t get it. It’s a human thing.”

“Zim is aware.” Metal against rock, Dib watches as the Pak lights rise and can hear Zim climbing on something. It’s a bit startling when something cold and metal wraps around his mid-section for extra support and Dib is unceremoniously yanked up by his hand up the face of the small cliff side of earlier. At least, that’s what he hopes they’re climbing on. “It has nothing to do with the current mission.”

Biting his tongue, Dib stabilizes himself on the flat of the rock’s surface. They must have arrived at the spot where they were prior. He can hear the waves grow louder, sounding less and less like the impact of water and more like an invitation. Still, he shakes his head. “It makes me uncomfortable.” He’s only half lying.

The dark snarls at him, but Zim’s eyes look mirthful. “ _You’re_ uncomfortable? You’re hands secrete water when you’re nervous, stink-boy! It’s, eh….cute, but in a gross way.” The alien wrinkles his face, and Dib really wishes he couldn’t see the mortification crawling up on his own. “Disgusting. Like a baby smchoolop.”

“…Just forget it already.”

The ground underneath his heel gives way and Dib would be lying is he said he didn’t feel a little jump at the sensation of Zim sliding them both down the cliff side. Hitting the sand, Dib almost (keyword: almost) has a second face plant but hand holding his stiffens and keeps him upright. He mutters something that can’t be considered a thank you, and refrains from looking into the direction of the red and pink glow. Looking out into the darkness must make him look kinda a stupid, but he’s already embarrassed enough.

The water smelled closer and the sound was louder, deeper, crawling into his mind like there was a crawling warmness in his throat. Wherever Zim was taking them, the sound would get clearer the closer they got. A simple sound, a complicated affect on his mind that made his tongue feel swollen and his chest lighter. Like the beginning of a buzz from a drunken drink, dizzy and yet he can walk just fine. He can walk towards the sound just fine.

It is alarming, slightly, but Dib doesn’t feel any fear, and he doesn’t know why that is either. There is only wonder.

His fingers twitch involuntarily, and Dib faces the water. He can’t see it, but he can smell it. Hear it. The sea-foam that washes up on the shoreline was as inviting as it’s ever been, the waves pull in and out with every heartbeat he has. Receded, then back again, receded, and once more. There’s something in there, watching them. Needing him. It’s hard to tell whether it’s curiosity or something else filling up his lungs when he breathes but the water must be _easy_ to wade in. He can float, humans always float. It’s there but not quite, not really, but he should find it. His brain feels scattered, his thoughts are muffled.

It might be watching him. He can’t see. But he can feel it. Feel them. Dib tilts his head at the breeze that comes from the ocean and dully, slowly, raises a hand to wave at the water.

“Dib!” A jolt. Something smacks into his chin and Dib’s face is roughly pulled into one direction, away from the sea. “Has your ear holes stopped working? Listen to your future overlord when I speak, I will not stand here and be IGNORED by the likes of you!”

His skin is cold, uncomfortably so. A shiver grits shakes up his spine and grits his teeth together until the claws hold his face let go, and amber eyes are staring back at confused, wary purple.

He wants to knock off his wig, grab the antenna and drag the alien to the water. A thought like that is sudden, unexpected, and not welcome, but lingers. Dib is sure that’s whats preventing Zim from hearing. Does he need help? He hasn’t said anything about it. He hasn’t noticed.

“Stinky-boy.” Zim speaks again, and it sounds hesitant. He grabs Dib’s ear, gently tugging it. “…Dib-?”

Dib jerks back, not far, but enough to rip away from his hands. “I wasn’t-…I wasn’t ignoring you. Kinda hard to.” A deep breathe, a subtle bite of the lip. It stings in a familiar way and something about that churns his stomach. “I’m listening.” He says. A moment passes in silence. “How close are we?”

Zim is quiet for a moment. A long, tedious moment that feels like torture when you have to keep your attention on your partner but the waves are still talking. “We have more walking to do, but we’re close I think.” The sand beside Dib shifts, his hand is taken (a little harsher this time) and he’s being lead forward again. “Zim is sure it’s leading up to a dead end, though.”

This time, Dib doesn’t protest being led. A glance towards the glowing Pak, a twitch of his enclosed fingers. Zim has made no indication of hearing the sound. The Pak legs are still expanded, moving in a way kept close to the body but ready to lash out at any given moment. Dib wonders if he should tell him.

“Let’s just keep going.” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “We’ll find it eventually.”

* * *

There is a cave on the shoreline. Edged deep into a cliff side none of them had traversed far enough for them to see, where the waters were rocky and the sand was filled with fish bones more than it was light grain, according to Zim’s input. Dib couldn’t tell if it was tiny fish spines he was walking on or pebbles caught beneath his sandals, but they made the same crunching noise either way.

The entrance to the cave was surrounded by water. Not deep, not enough where you needed to start swimming but just up to Dib’s knees. He was fine with that, even if the water was freezing cold and his ankles felt like they were going numb. He didn’t feel tired in the slightest. Zim, on the other hand, hissed at the instance of having to traverse against watery path and has been treading on Pak legs for several minutes now. It’s not deep enough that he needs to balance his weight, he’s careful to stab into the mud and rocks and hovers over the water that way.

It would be a pretty cool sight to see, that is, if Dib could actually see him and he was sure he didn’t look like an idiot holding the alien’s hand at a 90 degree angle.

Zim hovers over the water, glowing eyes peer into the entrance of the cave and squint. At the far end, Dib can barely make out a spot of light, deep within the entrance. “The signals are leading inside of there.” There’s concentration in his voice, with a hint of a snarl in his tone. “If your pitiful devices really were stolen by that thing, then there’s a chance it might be in there waiting for us.”

No chances, this was almost an absolute. Almost a promise. Dib is walking towards the spec of light already even as he answers. “I don’t see what you’re waiting around for, then.” If Zim would allow his hand to slip out then he would, but the Invader’s scowl flattens as he’s tugged along with. “If you’re really that scared of a little fish and some water, you can stay out here and I can go take a look.”

“And let you waltz off to your demise?” Zim scoffs at him. “Tempting, but no.”

With his free hand, Dib finds the inner walls of the cave and runs his hands along side of it as he walks. Rough, splintered rock, with years of water erosion evident under his fingertips. He uses it as a second guide, even as the light grows closer. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re being cautious or you’re just mad that we’re here.” A grin grows on Dib’s face, one that Zim squints at. “You don’t sound like you’re having fun.”

The hovering figure that is Zim stalks angled to Dib, keeping above water but close enough that he can crane his head down to talk not far from Dib’s face when the need arises. “Both. And no, Zim is NOT having fun. You think that walking around in this…this, _filthy_ , disgusting ACID and frolicking among the corpses of crushed up fossils is fun?” He can hear Zim’s frustration in his voice. “Zim cannot be fooled, stink-beast. Your continuous attempts to antagonize me are a result of your anger.”

In the back of his mind, a melody plays, echoes through the cavern and flows along the water. Something pricks the top of Dib’s head and he looks up, blinking through a daze. Purple eyes glower back down at him. It takes a moment for him to form his words.“You think I’m still mad?”

“Of COURSE you’re still mad.” Zim huffs at him, hot air blows on his forehead. “You hate Zim. Anger never truly leaves you. That is why you VEX me so with your… _decisions_ …your actions are so CARELESS and SELFISH. Like you’re TRYING to-to-” The alien sputters for a minute, searching for the words. In the midst of his ranting, Dib slips his hand out his grip, and saunters towards the lullaby. “You are as bad as virus! Constantly RUINING Zim every time you do something stupid!”

The words the alien spews are as lost on Dib as his mind flutters in and out, barely there but picking up on the sentences sparsely. One phrase sticks out to him, and he mulls on it, even as they push further into the cave and the light begins to illuminate the scenery into sight. A dim lighting, blue and coming from below, not from above. Dib looks down and see’s the water pushing outwards past his legs, away from the inside of the wave. It’s a color, a lighter, glowing color that brightens as they go further.

Dib blinks. They’ve reached an open area of some sort. Small, but there’s a larger pool of water in the middle. Just beneath the surface is a drop off, where the water goes deeper and darker. Peering down, there’s no telling how far below it went. Maybe just a few feet, farther than he could see. Maybe to the ocean floor. Really and truly the only way to find out was to step forwards and let himself fall in, dive in and sink to the bottom. Maybe wait there, see how long he can hold his breath until his lungs start to burn. Find out how long he can sit there until he freezes. Maybe he’ll float right back up to the surface before he ever makes it. Maybe…

“Dib!” Movement blocks his vision and Zim face is inches from his own, hanging upside down with a agitated expression. “How DARE you IGNORE-”

“I don’t hate you.” Dib’s voice comes soft, matching the lullaby. “I care about you. A lot.”

Zim’s face freezes. One eye twitches and silence settles, only hushed by the sound of the water still running through the cave and the melodies that float on top of it. A humming sound, a trance that buries into Dib’s brain. If this is what being drunk felt like, he understood why it was addictive.

It’s an awkward kind of stare down, but Dib doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Anything it’s interesting to see the alien so close. He can see every twitch of the iris of his fake contacts, The red hiding behind the white. “You don’t hate me?”

“No, no I don’t. Obviously.” Dib looks past him. The water is rippling.

Zim’s eyes narrow at him, claws up to the sides of Dib’s face and he’s squished, cheeks pushed together uncomfortably. Zim tilts his head to the side, left and right (the world swims a bit as his head moves, his body feels off, he wants to lay down into the water) and Dib mummers something he doesn’t remember allowing as his partner inspects his head, face, neck all while commenting on the size of his ‘massive cranium’.

Zim stops but the hands stay. Dib stares at him, half-lidded eyes, and expects something along the lines of ‘of course you don’t hate Zim. Everyone loves Zim. I’m the best’ or something else completely dramatic and fitting to the Invader’s behavior.

Instead, Zim holds him still and speaks quietly. “You care about Zim.”

“…Obviously.” Dib answers. A hum in his throat. He’s in a bit of a lull, his voice is slurred and he’s staring at Zim like he’s the only thing in the world that exists right now. There’s a heat flaring in his face and chest, stomach and throat, but instead of nervousness, there is only calm, content. “What kind of…stupid question is that?”

“Even if I did something bad?”

“Yeah.” That came out a little too quickly. “I mean, you’re a evil piece of shit, but yeah.”

(The water ripples, and for a moment, Dib thinks it’s laughing at them.)

Zim hesitates. His Pak legs extend further to stabilize himself, still hanging in Dib’s face and not looking like he’s going to move anytime soon. Dib stares back, throat dry and his tongue moving faster than he would have liked. Part of him regrets saying anything. A big part of him, A screaming part of him says something is wrong. But there is no fear.

Complacent and calm, Dib gives a loopy smile, and wonders why it feels weird when he does. “Look, you’re a genocidal piece of shit and we’ve been fighting for pretty much our entire childhoods, up at each other throats and just being miserable to each other up until….Whatever this is-“ He raises his hand and cranes his neck, pries the alien’s claws from his face and if anything, holds them to make a point. ”You’ve let lose a giant hamster on the city, militarized a holiday icon, stolen and eaten organs, be a horrible, sadistic asshole sometimes and I don’t know, you’ve probably killed people. Human people. And I still care about you.“

Claws twists and fold around his wrist. Zim rotates as Dib talks, eyes permanently locked in a scrutiny squint. Something is wrong here. Something about this behavior doesn’t feel right. This encounter doesn’t feel right at all. Zim is staring at him like he’s watching a science experiment burn to a crisp.

“You’re my friend.” He wishes he would stop talking. “You’re my best friend, actually.”

The alien doesn’t answer, only adjusts to hover above the water. Below his feet, the water stills. The cave casts soft reflections onto the walls, onto them. Dib can see the pink glow of the Pak reflecting off of the water and follows the colors that sink into the depths with it.

“Why do you ask?” Dib’s body feels sluggish, tired. Complacent. Briefly, he wonders if this now has anything to do with what Zim wanted to ‘discuss’ with him earlier.“What did you do?”

Zim’s is quiet. One of his fingers glide up the underside of Dib’s wrist and lingers there, pressing against his pulse. He presses harder after a second, two seconds. The tip of his claw starts to dig into the skin.

Dib wants to sink. “Zim-”

“Nothing.” Zim’s voice is cold. Alarmed. “Zim did nothing.”

_Oh, he’s lying._

Dib jolts, eyes wide, looking past Zim and causing the alien to jump at his action in return, until the both of them are staring down at the pool of water in the center of the room. Or, to be more exact, who was wading it it.

A pair of white glowing eyes peak out just over the surface of the water. Watching them. Smiling at them. Dib can hear the humming clear as day from within the creatures throat and the feeling is like a sedative.

With a loopy half-smile that he didn’t give permission to appear, Dib’s hand pulls from Zim’s and with all the enthusiasm of seeing an old friend, waves at the siren as it-no, she-, wades in the water. The rest of it’s body is hidden by the shifting depths of the pool, but he knows by the scales lining along her cheeks and neck that there’s a tail hidden underneath. Maybe the same kind of fins as the appendages on the side of her head where human ears should be. Maybe, to satisfy some persistent paranormal curiosity, Dib could take a look for himself-

Something jolts him back and he loses his footing, stumbling backwards over the rocks until Dib falls on his ass with an ‘oof’. The water that rose up to his knees now overtake half of his horizontal body (it’s freezing cold, but it’s not enough to wake him. He still feels the trance, the slumbering pull, the invitation.) and it takes a moment of shaking his head to clear his vision, droplets on his glasses for the investigator to recollect himself.

A guttural, low hiss. Zim all sharp angles and on the defense, hostility in his stance and murder in his voice. “ _You!_ ”

The creature looks up at him with only mild interest and smiles with all her teeth. Dib looks closely and notes that she only has two rows, just like him. Zim doesn’t know what he was talking about.

“You VILE atrocious thing! You reek of rot and falsifies!” Insults come naturally to Zim, even as he hovers over Dib and spews venom. The creature looks to him with barely any acknowledgement, swimming closer until she reaches the edge, head barely peeking out of the water. Zim recoils back in disgust as if her approach was a personal attack on his behalf. “Pathetic creature!”

She blinks slowly at the threats, coming up only slightly on the water to rest her elbows on the bank of the pool. Clearly now, she’s a glowing thing, like jellyfish in the deep ocean that they learned about in high school. A tail swishes around behind her, hand cupped in her cheek and looking sweetly out to the two boys, (well, boy and his guard dog alien, it seemed) and hums softly, quietly, though the sound echoes off of the cavern walls and makes the effect feel so much louder.

White eyes drag from still-hissing alien to Dib, sitting dumbly and staring at it, and rests on him. _So loud._

Dib’s skin feels numb. His mouth and lips feel numb. Everything feels muffled. “W-what.”

Zim turns to him in surprise, confusion in his face. The creature drums her claws against the rocks, a tiny clacking sound. They look long and hardened. They look kinda like Zim’s. _Such a loud thing. Screaming thing._

“Oh. Oh, yeah. He’s pretty loud.” Understanding comes once. Dib leans forwards towards it, even as it coos he’s not taken back, no matter the severity of the look Zim is sending his way. “He does that sometimes.”

It gives him a look, a warm kind of look. Dib feels his body moving on his own, standing and moving forwards. Surely, he’ll be fine. He knows how to swim and he knows how to do it well, all of this was for the pursuit of the paranormal. What kind of findings he’ll get. What kind of questions he’ll ask. The water is easy to wade through and offers no resistance, none at ll until something snags the back of his shirt and Dib is roughly jerked backwards.

 _Oh, pity._ A voice coos at him. _Pitiful thing. Sad, little thing._

Rough points in his hair, claws dig into his scalp and DIb’s head and pulled to face ZIm. A yelling, frustrated, and panicked Zim that keeps glancing over at the creature in the pool, (trapped in the water, she cannot leave there, but the alien looks frantic. Alarmed.) Dib blinks blankly at the feeling of his hair being pulled, cold metal against his back as it hooked around his shirt. Zim’s mouth is moving, but nothing is coming out. Nothing is being heard.

He can hear Zim’s voice. But not the words, no. Muffled, like he was speaking through an underwater telephone. He can feel the urgency, but there’s no fear in him. No rapid heartbeat. The Siren’s voice is the loudest.

After of moment of dumbly staring at each other, Zim’s face sink into something Dib cannot read, and the delightful laughter resounds from behind him. _Sad, thing. Pitiful thing. All that work will have been for waste._

Dib shakes Zim’s grip off, falling away to shocked rejection and cranes his sight forwards. The siren tilts her head, and he follows it with his own. “What are…you talking about?” She turns her head to the left, Dib follows. Standing, moving, crawling to the edge of the water. She’s mirthful in watching him come closer, white fingers dancing along each other, twiddling in wait like a child waiting for a toy. There’s a hunger in her want, a underlying craving in her throat that echoes into her melody. “What are you…singing?”

Metal slams in between the space of him and her and Dib recognizes the Pak leg, follows it upwards to find Zim spewing insults and threats (at least, that’s what he can assume the alien is saying) towards the creature with something long and red morphing from one of his Pak legs. A blaster, of some sort. Dib has seen plenty of those, especially in his younger years, and it’s not often that he gets to see them in person again, much less pointed at something other than him.

Light pulls into the blaster, ready to fire, a spark of red heats up at the tip and…nothing. A triumphant Zim suddenly deflates and looks at the malfunctioning lazor with apparent shock.

The creature giggles. _Loud thing. Angry thing. Is it yours?_

The trance is back, and Dib almost, just almost forgot that Zim was there. “Hmm.” Words come out smooth and slow, like on auto-pilot. Dib wades closer, close enough that the Siren takes a hold of one of his hands. The feeling of claws around his skin has become so natural, now that he thinks of it. This is wet and slimy, though. A drumming note he files in the back of his brain. Zim is somewhere in the background, lost in the back of his mind, still yelling and fussing over his malfunctioning blaster. “Yeah, he is.”

 _It doesn’t hear us._ She holds his fingers gently, softly. There’s something unnerving about the way how all comfortable this feel and yet the inner voice that Dib has for logic is overtaken by flooded thoughts and quiet delusions. _I read it. I read you. I know better, I can show you._

He’s being pulled forwards into the pool. His trunks are fully soaked and the front of his shirt is dampening as he goes. Her smile is sweet and calm. A warm one, even as the cold water begins to prickle his skin and her mouth begins to open. Her breath is hot, tongue ridged and there’s a shimmer of extra teeth hiding now that Dib is so close-

Screaming. The melody has risen and croaked with a horrible, retched noise. There’s a wet, gushing noise as something hot and wet splatters against Dib’s glasses and he’s pushed back. Disorientated and stunned, he foregoes wiping them as he comes to to find blood spewing from marks along the Siren’s face, ranging from her ‘ears’ to mouth and all the way down to her neck where the wound seemed to lighten. Gill were there, hidden by the hair but now revealed to the world, even as blood pooled around them, undamaged.

The Siren’s teeth are grit together in a way that clearly expressed pain but the music from her throat continued, if not interrupted, and it’s just enough for Dib to make out the shape of green that’s positioned over the siren, lashing out again in panicked fury. Zim’s claws are coated with an odd shade of red, droplets falling from his hand and coloring the water below. She must have splashed him as she lunged back, parts of his skin is wet, burning into darker splotches.

Dib’s stomach churns. There’s blood falling from his lip into his mouth.

 _Miserable, miserable selfish thing! Selfish, lying thing! Look at what you’ve done! Look at what you’ve caused!_ The Siren wails, even as the trance sticks. Zim only hisses something incomprehensible at her screeching. Whether or not the alien could understand her was irrelevant. _Ungrateful, horrible thing! You think you can save them? Are you not ashamed? Are you?_

Even if the words come out as gibberish to Invader, Dib wonders he can feel her tone of voice in his head, as does he. Some part of him, the small logical part that awoke in the attack, reminds him of telepathy and runs old TV documentaries and Mysterious Mysterious through his memories for some sake of an explanation. The other part of him can only sit and watch, (charmed and docile, just like the report said) as Zim faces off with the creature they’ve sought out to document.

Despite all other sources of hearing being blocked at the moment, Dib can still see just fine. Tunnel vision, maybe, but fine, and there’s a familiar, nervous look on ZIm’s face, the twitch of his finger’s isn’t just anger. The constant shifting, the fidgeting, the very fact that he hasn’t lunged on the Siren in the first place shows that the alien knew well enough that he was out of his environment. Water was everywhere, and there was no way that they could expect a fight without getting a little bit wet. The dark splotches on his skin grow darker, steam coming from the surface. Dib can smell the faint scent of burning flesh.

The siren’s face softens from the pain, expression going coy and opens her mouth. Zim seems to…halt.

The Invaders stops, eyes going wide and jaw falling open for a split second. It last a few seconds, only a few second, in which Dib realizes there’s a sharp jab in his palm that belong to a few sharp rocks digging into his skin. The siren was making noises, not from her throat, not directly into his mind but with her lips and tongue like a human does, but DIb doesn’t hardly understand any of whats coming out of her mouth. Some pronunciations sound familiar, smooth and sweet of a voice, but there’s a rough clicking here and there, a hissing sound that follows near the end of the sentences that sounds so natural, like a snake. Or really, anyone with a separateness tongue could have made.

She speaks in confidence, horror and offense flashes across Zim’s face, clearly understanding the language.

_“Some myths say they sing to lure sailors to their death. Some of them say they can shape-shift. One report said they learn the tongue of any human being they talk to instantly, to persuade them into…” A pause, he thinks for a moment. “Anything, actually. They’re supposed to be influential creatures.”  
_

The Siren was speaking _Irken_. Whatever she was saying, Zim was _hating_ it.

Something in Dib’s stomach drops and he reaches to catch a Pak leg (he’s slow, too slow, sluggish and useless) but finds himself too late as the alien yells something angry, all but disregards safety and lunges for another dive at the creature. Her provoke-tatic working, and in her own territory, it’s not a surprise, and yet equally a horror, as she dodges the initial attack by ducking underwater, rising just underneath the alien as he balanced himself and grabbing two Pak legs that were holding him upright.

Dib can do nothing but stare wide-eyed as the Siren yanks the lengths of the legs back under the water, breaking the Invader’s balance and swinging it just so Zim’s cry is cut out by the hard, smack of his skull against the rocks and falls.

He expects a harsh rebuttal. Instead, Zim stops moving and…sinks.

“Hey.” Dib sits, useless, and staring at the spot where pink glow began to disappear into the dark. “He can’t swim.”

 _Silly thing. Morbid thing. It wouldn't understand._ She looks satisfied, happy with what she’s just done. She floats back to Dib and coos around him, brushing her hands against his cheeks even as amber eyes stay locked onto the water behind her, where blood is still mixing in with the salt. Blood trickled down from the siren’s chin but her smile has returned to it’s full friendliness, as if nothing had happened. As if dooming someone to drown was hardly an inconvenience. _Foolish thing. I’ll keep you. I’ll keep you now._

Dib feels the limbs of his body start to tingle, like blood flow was rushing faster. His heart pace began to pick up quicker, the first it has done in a long time, and his breathing more erratic. Horror is exploding in his gut. His throat is wet, his mind is swirling. His hand palms around for a sharp rock. “He can’t _swim_.”

If the Siren could feel Dib’s breaking horror, she makes no sign of it. Brushing his cheeks, leaning in close, her face is kind and welcoming and Oh, there was a screaming, burning panic clawing it’s way out of Dib’s chest and into his racing breathes.

Her palms settle on Dib’s face, frozen and a thoughtful look crosses her face. _Why are you crying? I’ll keep you now._

Dib sockets the rock’s edge into the gills of her neck and _drags._

It makes a horrid, fleshy ripping sound and reeks of salt and rot as he tears through the skin of her throat, leaving jagged bits of her around the rock as DIb tears. Her eyes fly wide open at the pain, voice cut short and sudden terror in the creature’s own eyes as the veil lifts and the lullaby stops. She flops backwards, ungracefully, clawing at the bloodied flesh around her collarbone that’s peeling off in the severity and screams. It comes out gurgled and the wet.

Reality hits Dib like train, and _oh fuck_ , Zim was still down there.

Energy surges through him in a wild state and Dib kicks her farther away, ignoring the sting on his ankle when her claws catch the tip of his skin and stumbles forwards. There is half a second of thinking, that maybe he might be diving into his own demise but the unbridled screaming, logical part of him that’s been suffocated for the past hour doesn’t really give a fuck and the guilt and fear and miserable terror for his friend’s life is a pretty damn good of a motivator for Dib to suck in a deep breath, and jump.

The water is ice cold and sends a shock through his system, but Dib doesn’t care. Glasses don’t do shit for seeing underwater. The odds were against him. Time was against him. He doesn’t know how long Irkens need to go without Oxygen but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to be a genius that you wouldn’t exactly live long enough when you’re dumped unconscious into a pool of your species’s equivalent of acid.

Something kicks the water near his head and Dib barely sees the shape of white rush past him, far from him and the blood trailing after her. Retreating, somewhere either to heal or to die, it didn’t matter. Fuck the Siren. She wasn’t any importance right now. Dib could honestly careless if she somehow managed to stop bleeding out just to hunt him down in the water, he’s survived worse things and for fucks sake, he’s not going to let this stupid fucking mistake of his take away the one good thing he’s got going for them.

Water rushes up Dib’s nose and runs down his throat, but the numbness of panic doesn’t bother to register it. If Zim survived this, he honestly wouldn’t blame him if he wanted Dib dead.

A small, hardly visible glint of pink shines through the depths and Dib swims towards it as fast as he humanly can.

Gods, underwater it doesn’t even _look_ like him. Zim is obviously unconscious, floating in a awkward position with the lights of his Pak flickering on and off, purple and pink that Dib swears he’s seen in a pattern before, skin blistered and there’s larger portions of his body that are sizzling within the seconds, blood drifts from a spot on the alien’s forehead.

Bad, really bad problems but that’s going to have to be a problem for later. Hooking an arm around the Invader, the investigator pulls the alien close, and starts to kick upwards to the surface only to Blanche at the realization that two bodies was much more notability heavier than one, and Zim’s Pak was essentially a stone sinking them to the bottom of the ocean.

Dib kicks, in his mind cursing, crying if he wasn’t surrounded by water, to get to the surface but the weight is heavy and his lungs are beginning to fail him. The numbness and tranquility from before left him in shock and helplessness now. Zim’s Pak legs were still partially out of Pak and that wasn’t any help, hitting the limbs when he tries to paddle to the surface, bringing him down even further while Dib can do nothing but choke on fluid filling his chest and watching the skin of his partner dissolve.

All those times he bested fate, and now he’s doomed the both of them to a forgotten, sodden grave in the middle of nowhere because Dib just didn’t know when to stop.

A muffled, watery yet miserably shrill voice breaks through the suffering. “OOOH, I GET TO PLAY LIFEGUARD AGAIN?”

Dib blinks, still wrapped around Zim, and stares dumbly at a happy, smiling little green dog. What the absolute _fuck_ was _Gir_ doing here?

Wait, actually, get the weird alien robot to help them first, ask the serious questions later. Dib feels his lungs burn and resists the temptation of squeezing his eyes tight, his chest constrict and vision fading but manages to hold out his hand. Glowing blue eyes much too large and too bright to not shine out of the dog-suit stare down at the offering before straightening in the water, performing a salute, and biting onto Dib’s hand like a fetch toy. Dib might actually flinch at it if the Sir-unit’s feet didn’t start to spark and without any sort of warning, both boys are being jetted through the water at a speed that makes him hold onto Zim much tighter.

It feels like forever, but it can’t be more than a few seconds until suddenly the water breaks, Dib instantly gasps for air, figures out in about two breathes that they were no longer in that hellish cave, somewhere on a sandy beach, and drops Zim on his back as he kneels over and spits out the salt and liquid pouring from his nose and mouth. His throat feels like sandpaper, cursing in between each desperate intake of air. “Fuck!”

“I did good, right!” Somewhere besides him, Gir claps his hands together. The dog suit makes a wet, slapping noise when he does. “I diiiiiiid my best.”

DIb coughs up the last of his lungs and rubs the water out of his eyes. His glasses are lost to the ocean. “Zim?”

Gir’s head pipes up, looks down to the side and tilts his head at the unmoving, unresponsive Irken.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, don’t let it be in Dib’s luck to have a miracle happen just to screw him over in the end. Zim looks horrible. His entire body was affected, skin still burning slightly and there were spots on his body where it broke through whatever layers of carapace Irkens had and was brandishing a harsh red and gorey sight. Blood dripped from an open wound on the Invader’s head, mixing with the water left on his face that was permanently stuck in a blank, unconscious state.

The only semblance of hope given to Dib is that the open wound was healing before his eyes, slowly, but an indication that the Pak was trying to help him out where he could. But that wouldn’t mean anything to Zim if the Invader was biological dead from drowning.

“Okay, Dib, Think. Fucking think.” Panicked breathes. His own body still hasn’t caught up on the lost oxygen but the adrenaline coursing through him at the moment doesn’t care. “You know CPR. Remember the steps. Remember…”

Step one, lie the patient on their back. Done already except for the detail that Zim’s Pak and all of his stupid metal legs were splayed out in a way that tilted him upwards awkwardly, but he’ll have to make do. Okay, interlock fingers, got it. Chest compression, got it. Does Zim have a heart? Anything that even could be considered a heart? Dib presses his ear to his chest and hears something. Not exactly something he can describe at the moment, something familial that equates to memories and nightmare filled nights in a space ship, but honestly? He’s just going to have to work with what he’s got and worry about the kinks in the methods later.

Okay, open airway, pinch the person’s nose and give rescue breathes. Dib is assuming that whatever stupid alien biology Zim has, he can breath through his mouth like a human does, so that part is easier to focus on. Focus, Dib. Chest compression, repeat, prepare to administer air. Dib pauses at his mouth because his hand instinctively searches along the flat of Zim’s face and anxiety makes him feel increasingly more stupid by the second. How fuck does someone do CPR to an alien? Zim doesn’t even have a fucking nose to pinch!

Fuck it. Dib puts his hand on the Invader’s forehead to keep himself steady and leans down to breath into him.

One exhale, inhale, exhale, repeat, and then Zim spurts up with the speed of lightening and headbutts the both them.

“ _AUGHHH_ , SEA WATER! REVOLTING. DISGUSTING, FILTHY-” Zim’s voice is raw, hoarse and cracking in the slightest as he turns over on his side and vomits up mouthfuls of sea water into the sand. Dib is groaning, rubbing at the sore mark on his forehead but is quick enough to scamper backwards before the Invader accidentally spews all over him. “ZIM HAS BEEN TAINTED. TAINTED BY THIS FILTHY-” He coughs up another mouthful. “ _F-FITHLY-_ ” Another, until he’s hacking up what little more of the acidic liquid he possibly can. “ _PLANET!_ ”

His lungs are still working harder than what would be considered normal, but Dib’s shoulders relax and he lets out a sigh of relief. There’s a inkling of a smile on his face that feels more natural than it would be lured. He lays back, propped up on his elbows and watches as the alien sputters out the rest of the water from his system (and some colorful Irken curses) and dully notes the splotch of blood on the Invader’s mouth. Dib wipes off his own lips with the back of his hand and flicks away the blood when it comes back stained.

Zim, after a full minute of being lost in his own repulsion, eventually stops his grappling to get a good look at his body. He hisses something incoherent as he takes in the damage, poking at his own skin like it wasn’t something he recognized, and hissed again when Gir begins to poke the same area with a stick he’s found. With a sharp turn, Zim glares at Dib with a full intensity of someone who looked akin to frog thrown into a toaster.

Dib takes the silence as his cue, and lays back onto the sand exhausted. “I’m sorry.” A small silence. Zim is waiting, so he continues. “This is all my fault-”

“Oh, you think?” The alien’s voice is in between a growl and a wheeze, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s because of the water’s effect on his throat, or the aftermath of all that screaming. The alien gestures to his body, more so his legs, and croaks. “LOOK! Look at what has happened! Look at what your actions have caused! Zim’s beautiful body looks like a roasted beef!”

“I know.”

“A ROASTED. _BEEF_. DIB.” Zim scolds him. “IT IS VERY PAINFUL, DIB.”

“Yeah, yeah….” Dib runs his hands up his face and pushes his palms into his eyes if anything but to hide the guilt and shame. “Sorry.”

Zim all but groans something out in frustration. Dib can hear somethings sliding along around him, the sound of the Paklegs retracting back inside the Pak and a slump against the sand as Zim falls back to lay besides him. He was probably exhausted, if not in a worse shape than Dib was at the moment. He’s not an expert on Irken and Zim is never entirely too clear on how quickly the Pak can repair damages, but judging by the lack of panic the Invader has, it was safe to assume that he was out of the danger zone. Horribly burnt and smelling like melted plastic, but alive, and hopefully all injuries temporary.

A hand comes up and smacks him on the forehead, thwacking the already sore-spot on his hairline. “You’re not still…charmed are you?”

Dib pushes his hand off, folding his own over his chest and taking a deep breath. “No. I don’t think so.”

Zim makes a ‘hmm’ noise in the back of his throat (that sounds more like a frog croaking than anything else) before continuing. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know.” Dib answers, and hears the sand shift as Zim turns to glare at him. “I think I killed it. I hope I did. I kinda….slit it’s throat with a rock. Then it swam away.”

“Good.” Zim grumbles lowly. Gir has taken the stick and is now trying to draw the outlines of their bodies in the sand like some morbid type of crime scene. “It left you alive so I can kill you myself for your stupidity.”

“Hey, hey, Listen.” Dib speaks up, sitting on his elbows and peering over at Zim. The alien glowers up at him with nothing less but a scowl. “I may have gotten us in that situation-”

“It was ENTIRELY your fault.”

Dib points a finger in his face just to make a point. “-BUT I also saved us. Both of us, you included, asshole.” A pause. “Gir helped. I don’t actually know why he showed up.”

Zim rolls his eyes the hardest Dib has ever seen him and said Sir-unit’s fake ears pipe up at the mention of his name and comes scampering over to scramble over Dib’s shoulder as his master glares at him. “Of course Gir helped, you dim-witted creature, the Pak summoned him in my time of need!” He scoffs, a grin growing on his face as Dib begins to visibly deflate. “What did you do to help Zim, eh? Sit there and be seduced while I burned alive?!”

“I SAID I was SORRY. Fuck, Zim!” Dib groans, falling back to lay down again and dragging a hand over his face. “I did what I could! You’re not fucking light and you sink like a stone. And I did CPR on you! I helped! I did something!”

A momentary pause. Dib spares a glance over to his side. Zim’s tongue flicks out momentarily and eyes widen, face twisted into an unreadable expression, whether from the bitterness of the salt or the taste of blood. “…You did what?”

“CPR.” Dib repeats. “It’s what humans do when they want to resuscitate someone.”

Zim is quiet for a long moment, just staring blankly at him. It’s uncomfortable more so amplified by the tension and the guilt and shame that’s built up in Dib for the past few minutes so the investigator turns away, closes his eyes and waits for his body to feel like it would handle standing up again.

“I’m sorry, okay? I should have listened to you in the first place, about this whole thing. About a lot of things.” Dib sighs heavy, and his face is red with humiliation, but this was a long time coming and honestly, the awkward silence hurts less than it would if he had just left it alone. “I don’t like it when you prove me wrong.”

He expects an outburst of bragging, considering admitting his wrongness on his own part, but not even a twitch of a smile appears on Zim. The alien stares blankly, almost dumbly at Dib, and discomfort isn’t as prevalent as it was before now that he’s gotten that off of his chest. “I’m sorry I almost got us killed.” Dib pauses. “…Again.”

“Irkens don’t have human lungs.”

Amber eyes blink, turn to the alien and meets the blank stare with one of confusion. “What?”

“Irkens don’t have lungs like you humans. At least, we’re not dependent on them as your flesh bodies are.” Zim repeats, stating it as simply and matter as fact. “Oxygen deprevation is not harmful to me. Our Paks function well enough without it to repair us either way.”

Well, that explained why the Voot never had any sort of oxygen replication or major air circulation and storage before Dib started taking rides in the thing and Zim had to implament them. That detail, however, is not the one currently flaring embarrassment into Dib’s cheeks faster than he could cover them. “So you’re telling me…that you would have been fine,”

“Yes.”

“…and that I did CPR on you for nothing?”

Zim’s claws twitch, sink into the sank and leave long marks when he drags upwards. “That’s correct.”

Dib seriously, heavily considers the option of just walking back into the sea never to be seen again, falling onto his back and facepalming as Gir returns to poking Zim with a stick. Said alien has returned to stare up blankly into the sky, stars disappearing just barely over the horizon.

Gir, the sweetest thing, cranes over Zim and cooes with his paws clasped together and eyes turn upwards. “Awwww, Master look at you two so cuuuuteee!” He mimics a swoon, bends down to Zim’s face level and whispers in a totally-not-actually-whispering way. “Do he taste sad and ugly still?”

“…Gir, stop talking.”

* * *

Returning to the motel in the wee hours of the morning definitely painted the picture of sketchy, suspicious tourist, especially when one of the two of you is covered in surface level burns, reeking of mysterious substance and you’re both covered in sand, damp clothes and the faint scent of blood and salt water. The older gentleman unlucky enough to be manning the front desk at these ungodly hours side glances Zim as the two of them pass by to the stair way, and when questioned by the concerned stranger, Dib vouched that his ‘friend merely got a bad sunburn’ despite the fact that the sun wasn’t even fully up yet, and Zim still had blood caked into the edge of his wig.

But, whether the gentleman has seen crazy shit before or he just isn’t paid enough to deal with it, allows them to pass and only glances once, maybe twice at Gir, who’s attached himself to the back of Dib’s head for a ride, and Dib is honestly much too tired to care about it.

Dib inwardly prepares for the worst scolding a younger sibling, scratch that, Gaz in general could ever give him for leaving her with such robot, (and quietly tries to figure out what to even tell her of the details of the night) when entering her room, finds her fast asleep with Game Slave in hand, never aware of Gir’s departure nor the shenanigans of brother and alien. If there was any good thing the universe could have given him tonight, this was one of them. So they return to Dib’s room, Zim following, and reprieve.

Within those hours, new rules were made. Argued, embarrassing and maybe long over due, but mutually agreed upon terms that both Zim and Dib had to adhere, scribbled on sticky-note paper with a motel-provided pen by both parties and jabbed at until one was satisfied.

Written in scribble handwriting (and with Zim’s interjections, of course) , Dib agrees to ‘talk to his (amazing) partner about any actions pertaining to their paranormal missions, not to rush headfirst into danger without the knowledge of his (incredible) partner, and to listen more to the (always right and wonderful, future overlord of all humanity including Dib and his humongous head) partner, Zim’.

What he writes for Zim is simple; stop being such an vague asshole. Zim promptly draws a crude image of something alien on this sticky note, tears it up, feeds the pieces to Gir, spewls a monologue about his future conquering of earth and all of it’s inhabitants and then smacking Dib with a pillow when he questioned the fairness of their agreement.

Dib doesn’t think that the compromise was fair, but Zim seemed…relieved at the end of it, so he let is pass.

Of course, there’s the realization that neither of them had gathered any sort of evidence of the Siren’s attack, not that they would have been able to anyway due to her abilities, but the thought of Swollen Eyeball’s disappointment is strangely not as embarrassing to face as would be the possibility of Dib having to detail out the entire night’s experience. He’ll penalized for the missing tracker equipment, though.

When the morning hours arrive and Gaz walks in on the two of them in Dib’s motel room, Dib having built a practical pillow fort to protect himself from the alien’s hostility (with the help of Gir, mind you) whilst said alien applied healing ointment to his burns, threw paste tubes at Dib’s head and despite the Pak’s healing acceleration, still looking a little bit like a burnt piece of salami.

Which is why, (after an hour or two of Gaz’s combination of scolding, yelling and laughter at their own expense) Gaz is in charge of driving the four of them back home on the condition that Gir sits in the front passenger seat, and Zim and Dib are banned to the backseat and to ‘keep their alternations to themselves’, which was agreed upon unanimously.. In other words, Zim roasted Dib for several hours for his behavior and then Gaz commented on how ‘roasted’ the alien already was, and the alien was too butthurt to argue.

Bags all packed and thrown in the truck, keys handed over and hello-kitty car seat moved to the front, Dib paid the motel’s dues (including the broken doorknob) and mentally prepared for the road trip back home. They’re in comfort clothes rather than summer wear now, t-shirts and the what not, same as Zim who’s forgone the tacky Hawaiian shirt and trunks for some spare clothes they two siblings had packed to lighten any sort of friction on the burns. Still, Dib can clearly see the alien is uncomfortable in his seat, face locked into a permanent frown, and lacking a seat belt.

The little detail pisses him off, so Dib throws a leg over Zim’s lap and snorts at the offended reaction he receives for it.

Gaz glances through the rear view mirror just for a second. “You two look like absolute shit.” She wasn’t wrong. Zim looked like disgruntled burnt biscuit and Dib looked like a combination of sleep deprivation and anxiety’s incarnate was thrown into a blender and set to pulverize. “So am I supposed to come up with some fake story to tell dad all on my own or do you plan on revealing your blunder to the family?”

Dib’s face sinks into the collar of his hood, nose scrunched up in distaste. He attempts to remove his leg from the alien, but claws dig into his knee and once again, Dib has underestimated ZIm’s need to feel authority over the simplest of things. “Just tell him we all got sick or something.”

“He’ll probably want to experiment on you to find a cure for the common cold, but that’ll work.” Gaz spares Zim a glance from the corner of her eye, who is dutifully listening yet enthralled by watching Gir play with her game slave in the seat in front of him. Why the girl entrusted her precious console to the robot, Dib doesn’t know and won’t ask. He’ll chalk it up to whatever bonding the two had together in the spare time they were left together.

Gaz tunes the radio to something unfamiliar and DIb is not surprised to hear metal being the first to play. This trip was going to be a long one, with an already full blown headache and aching bones, he’ll be lucky enough if he can catch any sort of shut-eye in the next couple of hours. Amber eyes side glance the alien and hold the stare when he finds the alien staring back. Call it exhaustion, maybe familiarity, but would it be too weird to use Zim as a pillow or was that option thrown out of the window by the Irken’s current grudge and Dib would be resorted to risk a concussion resting his head on the window?

He’s been staring for a bit too long. Zim’s eye twitches and he slumps further down into his seat, clothes bunching up together in weird angles but pulling Dib’s leg with him as he goes. It’s not an invitation to sleep, (something about that whole phrase sends a shudder down Dib’s spine anyways) but it pulls him close enough for bare antenna to make out any conversation throughout the music, and Dib is smart enough to take a hint.

So, of course, Dib makes the extra effort to lean onto the alien and purposely push him into the side door in the most uncomfortable, natural way possible. “You rang, space boy?”

Dib’s voice is low, even without the music overtaking him, but Zim sends him a scrunched up look and a hiss in his ear when Dib presses on a particularly burnt part of his body. For a split second, Dib is sure the alien’s gaze dips lower to the healing mark still on Dib’s lip, but it’s impossible to tell without his contacts. The investigator lightens his weight on him, and Zim looks content with it. “Zim has questions.”

Tiredness threatens to rest his eyes, but he gives his attention anyway. “Shoot.”

“The vile creature. Fish-woman, thing.” Zim starts off. “It talked to you?”

Dib peeks upwards and Zim’s mouth thins into a line, lost into thought. He peers over into the front seat to see Gir dying in his current level by making his character jump off of the map. He really hopes that’s not Gaz’s save file. “So did you. I think, at least.”

“It spoke to you. You heard things Zim could not. You were having… conversations.” Claws drum on his knee. Ignoring what Dib just said wasn’t alarming in the least, no sir. But he doesn’t point that only, only listens as the Invader fidgets, thumbing at the fabric of his pants leg before continuing. “What did it say to you?”

 _It called you a liar._ “I don’t remember, actually.”

If Zim caught his bluff, he says nothing about it. Instead, his antenna twitch, something in Dib’s chest hammers a little harder in anticipation but the accusation never comes. Dib wonders, if just a spare thought, how much easier lying would be if your friend didn’t literally have the ability to detect your pulse and any little changes it would have skipped.

What sort of things did Zim zero in on him for? What sort of things was he hiding?

…That’s a problem for a future Dib. It’s been a stressful day or two. Dib pulls his leg off of Zim and slumps his head onto the alien’s shoulder without permission, and closes his eyes when the alien doesn’t push him off. “I think I’ve decided to swear off ever going to the ocean for the rest of my life.”

The music blaring from the radio makes it hard to detect, but Dib hears a low noise rise from the back of Zim’s throat, if only for a second. He doesn’t know whether to consider that a purr or to chalk his discovery up to shock itself. “That’s probably the best idea your simple primate brain has ever come up with. Your planet’s ocean is filthy, rotting and full of scum.” He nods to himself, if only to doubly agree with what he was saying. “I know of other planets with better oceans. Better colors, no pollution. And no vile, fish-women either.”

That strangely feels like an invitation. Dib peeks open one eye. “Other planets?”

“Beyond your galaxy. Far from this retched ball of dirt.” Zim doesn’t lower his head or make any move to close the distance between them to make it more comfortable, but Dib feels something tangling in his hair and promptly ignore’s Gaz’s raised eyebrow in the rear view mirror for it. “There’s a second seat under maintenance, along with other things, in the Voot. Figure it out, Dib-worm.”

They were probably going to be suspended for a while after this mission anyway. Dib didn’t exactly have a perfect track record with the organization and all these recent mishaps were too overshadowing to ignore. It maybe wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take a tiny, little ‘break’ from Swollen Eyeball. Just to recollect themselves. Maybe do some paranormal research on his own again.

Judging by the preparation, Zim prefers a space trip and possibly already has something planned. The longer that he thinks about it, the more a vacation off of earth began to appeal. Now Dib only had goal in mind; somehow convince Zim to let him work on the Voot with him.

“Okay, space freak.” Dib settles in more comfortably for the long drive and flashes a grin. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skippidy doo wop dee doo bowop dippidy doo bop the time for space adventures is coming upon us


End file.
